Our Kind of People
by Joseph McKinley
Summary: This takes place just after the Christmas Episode, where Rogue and Cyclops fail to recruit Angel. On their way home, they discover something much bigger than a single mutant. A community. My first fic! Please R
1. Mutants

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own the X-Men, or any other Marvel owned character mentioned in this story. However I do claim ownership of the Warriors, a group of original super heroes thought up by myself, for use in this story.

Setting: This takes place just after the Christmas Episode where the X-Men evolution series introduced Angel. Scott and Rogue are in New York City, and are making their way back home after Angel turned down their invitation.

Author's note: I hope you like this story. If you don't... then fine, be that way. But all in all I thought it was a good idea. Please, Read and Review, I beg of you, read this, and then review it. Now please note, that this is my first fic, so I'm not sure on the length of the chapter just yet, I hope it's not too short, or too long, if it is, I'll work on it with the upcoming chapters.

Chapter 1: Mutants

Scott and Rogue came from the hospital, somewhat cheery. It was Christmas Eve, and the season was going well, despite Warren's turn down of their offer. Rogue watched as Scott tried to hail a cab, almost smiling at his first three failures. Finally, he got one, by stepping in front of it. "Come on!" He said with some uncharacteristic cheerfulness in his voice, the Christmas spirit even had Rogue nearly excited about getting to the Institute to spend the morning with the Professor and Beast. As they got in Rogue took notice of a small boy, looking to be about fourteen, who sat on the one corner. Rogue next to him, and Scott next to her, at the window seat.

"Hi there, Merry Christmas." She said with her southern accent coming out a little thickly.

The boy just stared at her, a look of near shock and wonder on his face, like Rogue had grown a third eye or something. "Merry Christmas." He finally said in return.

"Where to?" The cabby turned and asked Scott.

"The airport." Scott answered as he started to look out the window.

"Alright." And the cab started to pull off. They drove for a little while in silence. "This is your stop boy." The cabby said finally.

And the boy nodded his thanks to the cabby, paid the man from the back seat, and went to get out, but before he did, he gave a look to Rogue, who was thoroughly curious if not creeped out about this kid now, and gave her a small slip of paper. "Merry Christmas." He said as he left the cab and the cab pulled away.

Rogue stared at the piece of paper and slowly opened it, hoping that it wouldn't be something perverted, or something weird, like that boy's phone number, after all, he looked to be about three years younger then her, if not more. On the piece of paper was this note:

"Merry Christmas,

I hope you weren't too afraid that this was something perverted, I know you were creeped out about me staring at you when you first got in the cab. I was just shocked to find two other mutants getting into the same cab as me, of all cabs. If you ever need help, or guidance, or something fun to do, come to this address. It's a place called the Cyber Hub, a sort of meeting place for our kind, we're always looking for new faces, come on and stop by. If it's of any interest to you, we're having a small party for our kind in about half an hour, feel free to stop by, the cabby should know where to take you, it's where he's dropping me off.

Sincerely,

Michael Young"

Rogue stared at the note wide eyed as she read it. She couldn't believe it, that kid was a mutant? And he knew about them being mutants, and there was a gathering of mutants right here in this city? This was something that needed to be checked out, or at least gone to for fun. But convincing Scott to go would take the preface that if there was a gathering of mutants, they needed to be revealed to the Professor, and they needed to gather information on them.

Scott looked to Rogue, who had a thoughtful look on her face. "What's wrong?" He asked still full of the Christmas spirit.

"Read this." She said handing him the note.

Scott's eyes got wide behind his ruby shades. "Stop the cab!" He called and the cab screeched to a halt. "Change of plans, take us to where you just dropped that boy off, the Cyber Hub."

The cabby turned around, and headed back, Rogue and Scott weren't really free to talk with the cabby there, but you could bet they'd be talking once they got out. Finally, they did, they got back to where the boy had left, and it hadn't taken long to get back there. Scott paid the cabby, who was off to join his family for Christmas festivities.

Scott was the first to talk. "That must be the place." He said gesturing to the building across the street from them, a large sign saying 'Hub' was hanging just above the door.

"Ya, there's a Christmas tree and stuff in there." The front windows were heavily tinted, but the tree was up close enough to the dark glass that you could see the lights from it.

They made their way across the street, and to the hub, they could hear the holiday music from inside, and voices, but they were afraid to what they'd find. What if this was some kind of really elaborate trap planned by Magneto? There was no way it could be, or was there... but never the less, they went inside and as soon as the bell above the door sounded, everyone in the front room turned and looked at them.

Rogue felt a blush come to her face, and stood there next to Scott who was scanning the room. "Uh... Hi." Scott said as they came in. "Sorry if this is a private party, someone invited us here. A kid named Michael?"

The door shut behind them and the boy that had been in the cab with them appeared from behind someone else in the crowd. "It's okay, they're our kind of people." He said to everyone in a loud voice, and the party continued. The boy approached them with a slight smile. "I'm glad you decided to come."

Coming Soon... Chapter 2: The Christmas Eve Party


	2. The Christmas Eve Party

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. Duh. I do however claim ownership over the original cast of mutants known as the warriors.

Authors Note: Okay, I decided that the last chapter was too short, so I made this one longer. A little more than twice as long, don't worry, it's still a good read... I think. Anyway, if you want to, you can put an original character into this community of mutants, and I can use them in the story, and of course, I will not claim ownership of them, or anything like that. I need to know the following: Name, Codename, Gender, Age, Height, Weight, Hair: color and style, Eye color, powers, personality, and if possible a link to a story that they've been in, so I can get an idea as to how the character could be used. Post that information in a review, don't email it to me unless you have to, if you do, I understand, but I might not receive it, my email is acting really wacky right now and I don't know why.

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Chapter 2: The Christmas Eve Party

The computer café that Scott and Rogue had come to had a small back room, and a large front room with a large five-foot doorway open between the two. Rogue counted around fifteen people there, give or take a little, and the Christmas music was on loud near the front, but became quieter as you got farther back. The boy smiled and talked to Scott and Rogue like he had known them for years. "Most of us here are mutants." He began to explain. "And those that aren't mutants, are humans that are friends of the leader of the whole thing, that know mutants exist, and are our friends."

"So these are people, humans and mutants, living and celebrating the holidays in perfect harmony?" Rogue asked with a brow slightly raised.

"Yep. As much harmony as you can get with any group of people. We're all from different backgrounds and positions in social culture, different ages, different mutations, and all together just different people all with one common bond. We share a gift, or a curse as some might put it, that we must hide from society." Mike spoke rather poetically for someone his age Rogue thought.

"It sounds like a dream." Scott said looking around the room, taking notice of the large food table that was on the right wall of the large front room. "And it's all run from this Café?" He asked with a tone of curiosity in his voice.

"For the most part." Mike answered. "What you see before you is the majority of a secret crime fighting community, known as the 'Warriors' headed by a man named Thomas Walkner."

"I think we'd both like to meet this guy." Rogue said what both her and Scott had been thinking.

"He should be here soon, stick around, have some eggnog, or food, there's plenty of food, and talk to some people. Feel free to ask any of us about our lives, what we do in the Warriors, whatever you want, even our mutations. We consider it a compliment, a sort of bragging rights if you know what I mean." Mike said with a smile and then left them both to wander the room, and mingle with the crowd. They went to the food table; mostly Rogue following Scott to the food table, she noticed that it had caught his eye earlier. At the far end was the eggnog and punch bowls; a man was in line ahead of them, looking to be in his mid twenties. Scott almost went wide eyed when the man's arm extended about four extra feet than it should have, to reach a cup farther down on the table next to Scott. They both just weren't use to these strangers who seemed to use their abilities so openly. Rogue and Scott filled their cups with some of the eggnog, Scott wondering if it had any rum in it, but he didn't see anything like that nearby, and Rogue not caring, just watching the room.

Rogue was the first to talk. "I hope we ain't stumbled across some cult or something." She said. "You know, with arsenic in the eggnog and all that."

Scott looked quickly to Rogue, because he had already drunken about half of his cup and had a mustache from it on his upper lip that made Rogue break out into a smile. "Don't joke like that." He said as he took another sip.

"You got something there, on your upper lip." She said gesturing to her upper lip.

Scott turned and took a napkin from the table, since they were still standing at it. "Thanks." He said wiping his face with it.

"I don't know. I think he looked kind of cute with the mustache." Came a voice belonging to a girl, just on the other side of Scott, the girl was getting some eggnog, and didn't look to be much older than Rogue, wearing a turtleneck sweater, and an attractive skirt. "You must be the two that Mike brought in tonight, right?" She said with a slight smile.

Scott snapped out of his momentary daze and answered. "Uh... Yes." He answered. "We're both pretty new here. I'm Scott and this is Rogue." He said introducing both of them.

"My name is Danielle." She said, giving Rogue a side-glance. "So what are your mutations?" She asked as if it were as simple as asking their names.

"I uh... I shoot beams from my eyes." Scott said, wishing that hadn't come out as stupid sounding as it did.

"Ah... Ah absorb people's memories and powers." Rogue said, a little embarrassed to talk about her powers, and a little annoyed at this girl for taking such an interest in Scott.

Danielle smiled politely at Rogue. "Sounds as if you've got a lot in common with Joe. Looks that way too." She said glancing towards Rogue's gloves.

"Ah wouldn't know, but Ah can't wait to meet him." Rogue said politely. "So what's your mutation?" Rogue asked not as delicately or politely as she could have.

"Don't have one." Danielle answered. "You see, Thomas brought me in after I got attacked by some dog on the street. The dog managed to latch onto my throat here, and did some heavy damage to my vocal cords and esophagus. Thomas, along with whatever team of doctors Mr. Kamesama supplied him with, did some repairs on me, and gave me this..." She pulled down the neck of her turtleneck sweater to reveal two strips of computer chips from the base of her neck, to where the neck meets the skull, on either side of her Adam's apple, each strip covered by a blue colored plastic like material. "He gave me a new voice box." She said with a nervous smile as she raised the neck of her turtleneck again.

Rouge was a little weirded out, but Scott seemed even more interested now. "This Thomas guy sounds really awesome. He sounds like a good guy. I can't wait to meet him." Scott said, now thoroughly curious about this underground community.

Suddenly the bell above the door rang, and a man's voice was heard. "Ladies and Gentlemen! The Kings have arrived!" The man said with a laugh. A few of the crowd gave mock cheers and one yelled 'Long live the king' welcoming the large guy, and the small figure next to him. Scott noticed that the figure next to him, seemingly a girl, was completely covered, you couldn't see her face, or even her skin. Rogue noticed that the guy was quite muscular, and his right hand had a glove on it, with five rings one for each finger and one for the thumb. A gold ring rested on the thumb, with a black ring on the index finger, and three rings of varying shades of gray adorned the other three fingers.

"Remember what I said earlier about the cult thing?" Rogue said, in reference to the whole, 'the kings have arrived' and 'long live the king' comments.

Danielle gave a laugh. "No, no, it's nothing like that. It's making fun of their last names. The new arrivals there are James King, and Jessica King. They were the first to join the underground community here when Thomas first started it, so with their seniority to the rest of us, and the last name, we have fun." She said with a smile.

Rogue nodded, and Scott looked back to the door, to see the girl that had been with him, whom he now knew the name of, which was Jessica, was taking off the hood and the coat and the gloves that had been covering her from sight. Both he and Rogue were surprised to see when the girl took off her outer coat and things that she was covered, like another mutant they knew, completely in fur, only her fur was golden-brown-yellow in color. Scott noticed that nothing in the room changed, No one seemed to care that this girl had fur, even when her tail became visible behind her.

Scott and Rogue looked back to Danielle, wondering where they had left their conversation, when Scott spoke up. "Uh... Hey, Danielle, do you know what time it is?" Scott asked.

"What's the matter? A big boy with a mustache like you got a bed time?" Danielle asked with a teasing smile, reminding Scott that he should drink his eggnog slower, or wipe his upper lip after he took a drink, to keep from getting an eggnog mustache like the one he had on his face now. "It's ten thirty." She answered.

Scott, through a combination of not quite getting the joke until it was too late, and embarrassment over the eggnog mustache got a little annoyed. "No, I don't have a bed time. I just wanted to be responsible, and call someone to tell them we won't be getting back when we thought we would." He said irritably.

"There a phone right there." Danielle said pointing to the counter at the back of the café.

Scott turned and walked towards the counter, almost storming, almost running with his tail between his legs. Danielle turned back to Rogue. "Your boyfriend is really cute when he gets all embarrassed and frustrated like that." She said with a slight smirk.

Rogue looked quickly from looking at the large muscular man James from across the room, to Danielle with a glare that could kill. "He's not my boyfriend. He's just a friend, we go to the same boarding school." She said, almost as if defending herself.

"Sorry, just since you two came together I just thought... Never mind it." She said before a brief pause. "So... Is he taken then?" She asked, sounding curious as she turned her gaze back to the guy in ruby colored shades who's back was turned to them while he spoke on the phone.

"How should Ah know? Ask him." Rogue said, now thoroughly annoyed, and failing at hiding it.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to strike a nerve, I just think he's kind of cute is all, responsible, safe, and yet mysterious with those ruby shades that he keeps on." Danielle said almost as if daydreaming about something.

"He doesn't wear 'em to be stylish or mysterious, he wears 'em cause he can't control his powers, and if he didn't wear 'em he'd send those energy blasts out of his eyes every time he opened 'em." Rogue said now hiding her annoyance a little better, if not becoming less annoyed.

"Are you in the same boat as him then? You can't control your powers, and so you wear the gloves?" Danielle asked turning back to look at Rogue.

"Well... Yeah, if you must know." Rogue said, annoyance coming back into her voice as she said it.

"I was right then, you do have a lot in common with Joe." Danielle said with a genuine smile as the bell above the door rang again, and in entered a teen, about Scott's age, slightly older than Rogue. "Hey Joe!" Danielle called. "Come on Rogue, you've got to meet this guy." She said as she started towards the door, where Joe was already unzipping his leather jacket, and had removed his woolen snowcap.

"Merry Christmas Danielle." Joe said with a slight smile, he was tall, and muscular, definitely toned but his muscles weren't as large as James', but were larger than Scott's. "And who's this?" He asked indicating to Rogue with, what Rogue noticed to be, a gloved hand, in fact, both of his hands had gloves on them, the kind that Rogue liked to wear, not the snow kind.

"Joe this is Rogue, she's new, Mike brought her in." Danielle said, gesturing as she introduced the two of them. "And Rogue this is Joe." She said with a smile, which seemed to be becoming a more permanent attachment to her face. "I thought you two should meet each other, with your similar tastes in clothes and all." She glanced, and Joe followed her eyes, and it was then that Joe noticed Rogue's gloves.

"It's nice tah meet you." Rogue said with a smiling nod.

"The pleasure is mine." Joe said as he offered her is hand. "My full name is Joseph McKinley. Most people call me Joe." He said as she took his hand, and they shook, both wearing gloves.

It was then that Scott came back from using the phone, and after finding Rogue cleared his throat. Joe looked over to see him, and smiled slightly, offering his gloved hand. "Hi there, name's Joe." He said as Scott shook his hand.

"My name's Scott." He said with an almost fatherly protection of Rogue in his voice. "Uh... Anyway, what'd I miss?" He asked as he looked to Rogue.

"You didn't miss a thing." Rogue said, and there was a minute of awkward silence, broken of course, by the infamous Danielle.

"Here, come on, I don't want my big mustache boy to feel left out, let's go and get you introduced to some people." She said with a smile, and then started walking, almost dragging Scott with her.

Joe looked at Rogue with a brow raised. "Big mustache boy? Did I miss something?"

Rogue couldn't help but laugh, just Joe saying it like that made it sound utterly ridiculous. "He drank his eggnog too quickly, and got a little mustache, we've been teasing him for it all night." She explained.

"I see. Well I guess it's good I didn't get here late, or I'd have missed too much." He said with a slight smile. "So Michael brought you in, eh? That's cool, he brought me in too, found me after a football game with someone else's body." He felt the need to explain after Rogue gave him the most confused look he had ever seen. "Sorry, I guess I thought Danielle there might've explained my powers to ya if she was introducing me to you." He apologized. "Ya see, when I touch someone, I become them, literally, I absorb their looks, powers, all of their genetics, even their voice, and replace it with my own. The effects usually last for six hours, and I can't change back to myself until that time is up, and then it's automatic, I can't keep it longer. So I usually tend to shy away from skin on skin contact, since I can't control it."

Rogue looked at this guy and nodded. "Yeah, mine's kind of similar, when I touch someone, I absorb their thoughts, and their powers, but they got knocked into a coma or just get knocked out because of it. Does that happen when you touch someone?"

Joe shook his head. "No, the only real side affects that a person might have after I touch them is a slight headache, but that's the most that it's ever been." He said. "If you want to hear about someone being knocked out, your best bet is to talk to Mike, the guy that brought ya here, he's a telepath, but he can't block other people's thoughts from his head, so if he spends too much time in a crowd, and there's too many voices in his head for too long, it's kind of like his mind explodes or something, and it knocks everyone out in like a ten foot circle. It's pretty cool, but for a better definition of everyone's mutation, you need to speak to someone more scientific, I tend to just stick to the basics." He shrugged.

"Well that explains a lot. Like how Mike knew Scott and Ah were mutants, and how he commented on what I had been thinking when he gave me that note." She said with a brief pause. "Ah think Ah like this place already." Rogue said with a slight smile.

"Hey, you mind if we get some food? I'm kind of hungry." He said starting over towards the food table, on the right side of the large front room.

"Go ahead, Ah ain't gonna stop ya, a big fella like you." She said as they walked to the food table, and Joe picked up a plate, and began stocking it with some food. A lot of food Rogue realized, but he was a big guy, he probably did eat a lot.

"So where you from?" He asked as they moved down the table. "You ain't from this city with that accent." He said with a slight smile.

"I live in Massachusetts now a town called Bayville, but originally no, I'm not from here, I'm from Mississippi." She said with a hint of pride in her voice.

"That's cool." Joe said with a nod. "So what brings you to our city of all cities?" He asked as they reached the end of the table, and he picked up a fork.

"Well... Scott and I... We came here to visit someone, as part of a... School assignment." She said sounding un-reassured.

"Must be a cool school. You're kind of lucky, there's a few people in our group here who can't go to school, because of their physical mutations." Joe said before taking a bite of a mixture of foods that were on his plate. "Like Jessica King for one, me for another, I kind of dropped out after my mutation manifested, I've been afraid to go to a real school I suppose, I've been taking night classes." He said and then took more food.

"That's a shame. Perhaps a few of you should come and check out our school. They might have a way to solve all that, the Professor at our boarding school has all of the students going to the local high school, Bayville high, and all of the students in the boarding mansion are mutants."

"Maybe I will. I'll talk to Thomas about it." Joe said.

"You need his permission?" Rogue asked with a brow slightly raised.

"No, I just need to tell him about it, so that he can prepare incase of an emergency, and not have to depend on me." Joe answered as the bell above the door rang once again.

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Coming Soon... Chapter 3: The Leader


	3. The Leader

Disclaimer: I still do not own the X-Men. However I still do own the warriors, and since no one supplied me with their own OC yet that they would like to see in the story, I also own all of my Original Characters that are in the Warriors.

A/N: I've decided to respond to some of your reviews, and answer some of your questions. Here goes nothing. Again, I beg of you, if you read this story, please, pretty, pretty please, review it and tell me what you think of it.

KaliAnn: Thanks for wishing me luck. And don't worry; I have over twenty different bios for original characters that make up the warriors. You'll get to see a lot more original characters, and their introductions to Rogue and Cyclops, and perhaps a few other X-Men in up coming chapters.

Ldypebsaby: Joe and Rogue might hook up, but definitely not right away. And I'm glad you like the new group. :)

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Chapter 3: The Leader

While Rogue had been talking to Joe, Scott had been taken to the back of the front room. "Scott, I'd like you to meet my friends. This is Jessica, Gracie, and Elise." She said gesturing and smiling as she introduced them. "Jessica, Gracie, and Elise, this is Scott. He's new to the group, Mike brought him in."

"Well... We haven't actually joined the group yet." He said referring to both himself and Rogue. "But it's nice to meet you all."

Jessica, the one covered in fur, with her tail wrapped around her waist spoke first. "It's nice to meet you too Scott." She said with a smile, revealing her fanged teeth. "Where is Mike anyway?" She asked looking back to Danielle. "I haven't seen him all night."

Scott nodded to Jessica, but stood silently as Danielle answered her question. "He might've left already, you know he can't handle crowds." Danielle answered.

Jessica frowned slightly. "Maybe he went to get Thomas." She said hopefully. There was a short awkward silence that followed, which was quickly broken by Gracie.

"So, Scott. Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, what's your mutation, what's your girlfriend's name?" She asked with a slight smile.

Scott was about to say something, when Danielle beat him to it, nearly cutting him off. "That girl isn't his girlfriend." She explained politely. "They just came together because they live at the same boarding school. At least that's what she told me. Is that right Scott?" She asked looking over to him.

"Uh... Yeah. Actually. She's not my girlfriend at all; we just live at the same school." He said almost confusedly.

"So what's your mutation Hun?" Gracie asked with a nearly flirtatious smile.

"Well... Uh... I shoot beams from my eyes, and I need to come up with a better sounding way to say that." He said the last part almost under his breath, but they all heard it. "And yours?" He asked them all as a brow rose from behind his shades.

"Mine is stabilized equilibrium." Grace said rather scientifically, and proudly, even though Scott had no idea exactly what that meant, or what it did.

"I've got Empathic abilities." Elise said, and left it at that.

"And I've got what you see before you." Jessica said with her arms out to the side, presenting herself with a slight giggle.

"I have a small question." Elise said, pausing before continuing. "Who runs the school where you and your friend attend? Is it all mutants?" She asked with curiosity in her voice.

"Well... A man named Charles Xavier made a place for mutants to live and learn how to use their abilities, or at least how to control them a little better. We live there, and go to the local school there in town." Scott explained.

"Sounds pretty cool." Elise said, in response to his answer. "Where does all this happen, the learning how to control the powers, I mean obviously the people at the local school don't know that all the attendees from Xavier's place are mutants, right?"

"No, the school has no idea. You see, Xavier built this place called, 'Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters' and so anyone who goes there, is supposedly gifted, and we all are, since we're all mutants." Scott said explaining it a little better. "So the local school that we attend believes that by boarding at Xavier's we just get extra tutoring and such and are extraordinary students."

Some of the girls nodded, but Jessica spoke up first. "Gifted huh?" She chuckled slightly. "That's not what I would call it. A mutation isn't a gift, it's a curse, because a gift can be refused, or returned." She said intelligently.

Scott wasn't prepared for this kind of discussion or debate, it could go either way, it was all on a person's point of view. "I suppose it's all in how you look at life." He shrugged.

There was another silence, which was suddenly broken by the bell above the front door, everyone turned to see who it was, and there stood Mike with another man. The other man was dressed in a Santa costume, with a large white beard on his face, and a smile hidden under it. "Ho Ho Ho!" The tall man with Mike said. "Merry Christmas!"

A few laughed, most returned the greeting of 'Merry Christmas' Scott noticed that Rogue and the guy she was talking to were smiling and looking towards the man in the Santa outfit. Suddenly his train of thought was interrupted by a whisper from Danielle. "That's Thomas." She said with a slight smile.

Thomas dug through the red sack, and to everyone's half surprise, half expectancy pulled out a gift, wrapped in red wrapping, with green ribbon. "Let's see here... To: James King!" He called out with a smile. The whole room was smiling, even Rogue. James went up and took the gift, nodding his thanks and turned with a chuckle to unwrap it. "And next we have... Oh, who do we have here? Scott Summers!"

Scott's faced dropped, he hadn't expected to be called at all, what would he get? "Uh..." He started.

"Oh come on, just go up." Jessica pushed him forward playfully as Scott went forward and took his gift from Thomas with a slight blush to his cheeks.

The gift giving went on, and on, and on. Everyone in the room got a gift, even Rogue got one, a pair of snow boots, her size, which was awfully convenient because she had been thinking about getting a new pair while they had been riding in the cab. She knew Mike had to have gotten these gifts for them, which explained his disappearance from the party.

Scott got a wristwatch, something he had been thinking about getting for some time now. Even Scott himself couldn't help but laugh when someone through the gift giving yelled out. "Hey! I got coal! Oh no wait... It's candy!" He had looked up, but not seen who had yelled that. This place seemed awesome, these people were so friendly, and nice, some of them were mutants, some of them were humans, all of them were celebrating, and having a good time.

"You must be the new guy!" A man's voice said a little loudly forcing Scott to look up to see the guy that had come in before with Jessica, James King, Danielle had said his name was, man was he huge.

"Uh... Hi. I'm Scott Summers." He said as he stood up and offered his hand.

The big guy laughed at the hand but shook it anyway. "I've heard all about you." He said with a smile. "My sister over there talks highly of you, so I thought I should come and see how you were doing myself." He spoke loudly, but friendly. "So how about it? You having fun?"

Scott nodded. "Ya, this place is great, it's like a dream world." He said a little sarcastically, but he meant it to be totally honest.

"Well just wait till you meet Thomas. You'll love him." James said with a smile. "Hey, Thomas! Get over here! Meet the new guy!" James waved him over from talking with the man that had stretched his arm across the table earlier while Scott and Rogue were getting eggnog.

Rogue came over too, tapping Scott on the shoulder. "About time we got to meet the leader of things here." She said quietly.

"Hi there miss." James said as he nodded. "Didn't see ya there..." He started as Thomas made his way over, and finally came up to them.

"Hi there, my name is Thomas Walkner." He said offering his hand. "You must be Scott Summers, and you must be Rogue." He said as each of them shook his hand. "Welcome to the party, I see you've already met a few people." He said looking to James and then to Rogue, who was now joined by Joe who was standing behind her.

"Yes. Well we've been wanting to talk to you since we got here." Scott started. "I mean this is great what you've done here and all, I love it." Thomas gave a nod as Scott continued. "But I have a few questions. What are the rules of the group? Is it like a cult thing? How many members do you actually have? And aren't you scared you'll be discovered by the general public?" He asked it all rather quickly, and was slightly out of breath by the time he had finished.

Thomas smiled a little and nodded. "Well... Let's see... The rules of the group are as follows 1) All Warriors have a responsibility to protect those who are unable to protect themselves, whether human or mutant. 2) All Warriors are forbidden to kill a human or a mutant even when doing so protects another human or mutant. 3) Respect your fellow warriors. And the last one 4) You are to pay the amount of one hundred thousand dollars to me upon signing up."

Rogue and Scott shared a look and then looked back to Thomas, however by the time they looked back to Thomas, he, James, and Joe, were roaring with laughter, because neither Scott nor Rogue had gotten the joke in time. "The fourth one there was a joke. We only have those three real rules. We help others, without killing anyone, and we respect others within our group, oh, and we do not reveal ourselves as mutants." Thomas explained.

"And I can tell you this think ain't no cult or nothing like that." James said with a smile, recovering from his laughter. Scott and Rogue felt so gullible, even Scott blushed slightly at his embarrassment.

Thomas however continued to answer his questions. "No, we are not a cult, people are free to come and go as they choose, however should someone choose to leave they must swear to secrecy about the Warrior community, because we don't want the general public knowing that we even exist." He said with a nod, changing the note of the conversation to a more serious one. "The last count I believe was eighteen. So we have eighteen people in the Warriors, as for a human to mutant ratio, if that mattered, I'd say it's like for every 1 human, there's about three or four mutants." He shrugged a little. "But no one here really cares if you're mutant or human, so we don't tend to make a big deal of it. And we're getting more and more members all the time, so it's hard to keep on track. That eighteen number was a few weeks ago, there's likely to be more than twenty of us now." The man in the Santa suit looked pretty funny explaining this all to them, but to anyone there actually hearing him you wouldn't have laughed. "And no, we are not exactly afraid of being discovered, but we do take precautions so that we won't be." He said finishing up the list of questions. "Was that all of your questions? Or did I miss one?"

"Ah think ya got them all there." Rogue said, speaking for the first time in this conversation.

"Well good." Thomas said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Kamesama doesn't look to happy over there, and I need to discuss business with him, please, stick around, talk to people, introduce yourselves. Do not be shy. Eat, drink, and be merry! It's Christmas!" He said with a good-hearted laugh, and went off to talk to the Asian man that he had been talking to before.

"Who is that Mr. Kamesama guy anyway?" Scott asked looking to James.

"He's the guy that pays the bills. The man behind the man as it were, he doesn't make any real decisions or nothing, but it's him that makes Thomas' projects and things possible. He gets Thomas what he needs, and Thomas does the work. Like Danielle, and Roger over there, and of course there's AI-9." James explained.

"Oh, Ah see..." Rogue said looking to Joe as he came up beside her, instead of standing behind her as he had been doing.

"Ya, the only odd thing is no one in this group knows for sure how those two met. Jessica told me this theory that was rumored before I got here that Thomas there saved Mr. Kamesama's life by using his powers, and the two became friends. And then they founded this group a few years later. But nobody knows for sure, and neither of them will tell us anything, they like to tease us with the secret I suppose." Joe said with a slight smile.

"And who's that with Mr. Kame... Kamasuma... With what's his name?" Scott asked, not able to remember the correct pronunciation of the man's name.

James smiled. "The twenty something lady there in the suit? That's Quinn Lee. She's sort of like his personal body guard." He explained.

"Is she a mutant?" Rogue asked rather bluntly, not meaning for it to sound the way it came out, but James and Joe didn't seem to care, they were used to discussing stuff like this it seemed.

"Ya. Thomas had some scientific terminology for it, but it basically boiled down to the fact that she is incapable of having emotions. She can't hate, love, or nothing. It's really kind of creepy." Joseph said as he looked to the lady standing next to Mr. Kamesama, and then turned his attention back to Rogue. "I don't know how they trust her, but apparently they take the risk." He shrugged.

"It sounds... Weird." Scott said as he looked towards them too, but when Mrs. Lee returned his gaze he turned away.

"Anyway. Come on, we'll introduce you to some of the other's here." James said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. "Follow me." He waved them over to follow him with his right hand, which had the glove with the rings on it, and walked towards a group of certain people. "Hey, Roger, Will, Jonathan, and Amanda. This is Scott, and Rogue." James said gesturing. "Scott and Rogue, this is Roger McDowell, Will and Jonathan Howlett, and Amanda Suchil." He introduced them with a smile.

"It's nice to meet you all." Scott said with a nod to each of them, he noticed that Roger's right forearm and hand were slightly lighter in color than the rest of his tanned skin, and Jonathan and William were twins, both looking to be slightly younger then he, but both with obviously dyed blue hair slicked back, the color made to match their eyes. One was wearing an expensive outfit with nice shoes, the other wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and then there was Amanda, who looked to be in her mid thirties.

"They're new here, Michael brought them in." Joe said with a slight smile. "Rogue here is kind of like me, she absorbs people's memories and powers through contact. And Scott here... Well... What is your mutation anyway?" Joe asked looking to Scott.

"I uh... I shoot beams from my eyes." Scott said as if defeated, he was getting tired of saying that, especially when it sounded so stupid.

"It's nice to meet you both." Roger spoke up. "I'm a human, so I don't have any mutations, except that Thomas gave me this." He held up his right forearm, and Rogue too noticed that it was slightly lighter than the rest of him. Roger took a napkin and swiped the top of his hand, to reveal computer like replacements. "I'm a cyborg of sorts I guess you could say. Thomas made this for me after I lost the real one during an accident on a construction site."

Rogue thought that it was a little creepy, but didn't show it, meanwhile Scott was becoming more and more impressed with these people and the things Thomas had done for some of them.

Will spoke up next. "Mine's a little hard to explain but basically, I can pull smaller objects towards me, or pull myself towards larger objects." He said plainly, not really going to give a demonstration or anything.

Jonathan then spoke up. "I can uh... Basically I can create invisible fields of energy that expand out and push things away from me." He said shrugging.

Amanda at first didn't give hers, until James gave her a slight nudge. "Age manipulation. I can control my age." And she demonstrated, going from thirty something to fifteen in almost twenty seconds.

Rogue went wide-eyed at the demonstration, as did Scott, but returned to normal quite quickly. "That's so cool." She said after the demonstration was over and Amanda returned to being older, about twenty something. "So how old are you really?" She asked with a brow cocked.

"It's impolite to ask an old lady how old she is." Amanda said with a slight smile, she never gave that information out to anyone, no one except for maybe Michael knew, but in reality she was ninety-four years old. "So, anyway, what were we discussing?" Amanda asked changing the subject entirely and looking back to Roger.

"We were taking bets on who is going to get the fun job of taking that Wulf fellow his gift tomorrow morning." Roger answered.

"Ah yes. I still believe that Thomas will do it." She said with a slight smile.

"Oh no, it's been a tradition for two years now, you pick the name out of the hat, and that's the person that goes and runs the errands dropping the presents off to those that couldn't make it here for the Christmas Eve party." Jonathan said explaining it to Rogue and Scott, who were new, and probably didn't understand all of what they were talking about.

"I bet Jon's the one to do it." Will said with a slight smile.

"I think it'll be Danielle, she hasn't even seen Wulf yet." Jon recounted.

"It don't matter much I thi-"James was cut off by Thomas getting up on a small coffee table, and making an announcement by use of his hands. There was the Santa man, dressed in full Santa suit, cupping his hands to his mouth, and speaking in a loud voice as the music was turned off.

"Attention Ladies and Gentlemen!" He began. "It is time for several holiday celebration traditions!" And some people clapped. "There will be the drawing, to see who gets the fun job of being Santa's delivery boy to those who couldn't make it here tonight." He paused. "There will be the eggnog drinking contest, back by popular demand. And of course... There will be the mistletoe toss!" At this several of the younger girls and guys booed, but the older ones laughed.

"This is bound to be interestin'." Rogue said leaning up to Scott so she could whisper without anyone else hearing.

"Uh huh." Scott said with a slight nod, paying attention more to the man in the Santa suit then he was to what Rogue was saying.

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Coming Soon... Chapter 3: Traditions


	4. Traditions

Disclaimer: I still do not own the X-Men or any other Marvel owned characters mentioned in this story. I do however claim full ownership over the warriors and the mutants and humans within it, and I will continue to do so until someone supplies me with their own Original Character that they would like to see in the story. In which case I will not own that character, they will, so I can no longer claim ownership over all the warriors, but for now, I still own them all. So ha!

Ldypebsaby: I'm glad that you think this is cool, I think it is too. Not all the girls go after him, but one does, to the anger of Rogue, but it's not Danielle, can you guess who it is?

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Chapter 4: Traditions

"Alright!" Thomas called, still standing on the small coffee table in full Santa regalia. "The moment you've all been waiting for... The drawing!" He took the Santa hat from Mike as Rogue and Scott watched, now really getting into this, wanting to see who would be picked. "And the one that gets the important job of delivering presents to those that couldn't make it here tonight... The one that gets to bring Christmas cheer and happiness to faces all over the city..." He spoke loudly so everyone could hear him as he dug his hand into the Santa hat, and pulled out a single strip of paper. "Is... Joseph McKinley!" And the gathered crowd clapped and gave a few yells of congratulations.

Joseph nodded, it wasn't really an award, but it was considered an honor to get this job among the Warriors. Something Thomas devised so that people would actually want to do it, and not quit if they were assigned it, which was fairly clever of him.

"Now, just give Danielle and Elise a few moments to get everything set up, and we'll have the eggnog drinking contest!" Thomas called out, and was responded to by a bunch of the guys, including James and Joe giving hoots. "Who are these year's contestants?" Thomas called.

"I'll do it!" James called out as he nodded his head back a little. "I won last year, don't see why I shouldn't try to do it again!" He yelled with a laugh.

Thomas chuckled. "Man. Look at the size of him, does anyone here think that they can beat this giant of muscle? He can pack a lot of eggnog into that stomach of his!" He said with a laugh.

"I'll try it!" Will called from behind Scott and Rogue a bit. "He might be big, but I'm thirsty!" A few of the crowd gave a laugh.

"Anyone else?" Thomas asked. "This is your last chance, if you want to join in, raise your hand."

No one seemed to be raising his or her hands, but Rogue had an idea, and leaned over to Scott. "You should do it." She whispered.

"What?" Scott asked looking over to her.

"Oh come on, it'll be fun. Plus it'll impress those girls over there that you like so much if you show them you can loosen up and beat that big guy." Rogue said with a slight smile.

Scott seemed to think about it for a second, hell, it would be fun, and in the Christmas spirit, why not? "I'll do it!" He said raising his hand, although the second after he did it he couldn't remember why he had agreed to it.

"Alright! The new guy!" Thomas called as he waved Scott over, for Scott to join James and Will who were standing near the coffee table now. "How about it, anyone else?" After a brief silence it was obvious no one else was going to volunteer so Thomas looked towards the back of the room, where a small table was now set up, with three chairs, and cups full of eggnog all over the table. "You girls ready?" He called over.

"Not yet!" Elise called as she continued pouring more cups. "Just give us a second!" Elise and Danielle were working as fast as they could to get cups of eggnog onto the table.

Thomas paused for a brief second, but only a brief one. "How about now?" He asked with a slight chuckle.

Elise nodded. "Sure. Bring 'em on over, I think we're ready for 'em now!" She called as she and Danielle stood behind the table.

"Alright you three, get over there." Thomas said, giving James a slight nudge. The three walked over, and took their places, with Scott sitting in the middle, feeling slightly nervous about the whole thing.

Danielle smiled at him from where she was standing on the other side of the table. "Good luck Hun, you'll need it to beat this guy." She said giving James a playful pat on the arm as she walked by.

Scott smiled nervously as Danielle walked away, and looked at all the cups of eggnog before him. This wasn't going to be much fun for him, but at least he had loosened up a little.

Thomas came over to the side of the table, and spoke loudly again so the whole room could hear him. "Alright, for those of you who weren't here last year, and don't know the rules of the game these are them. Each contestant has fifteen cups of eggnog before him. The first one to drink them all wins! Simplistic isn't it?" He said with a slight laugh. "Now are you all ready?" He asked turning towards the table. James gave a nod, Will gave a nod, and Scott following the pattern gave a nod, though you could tell he was feeling uptight. "Alright... Hands on your laps... Ready... Set... Go!" He shouted as he waved his arm down as if he was waving a flag at a race.

Scott picked up his first cup really quickly, and downed it as fast as he could without getting any on him. He set it down to find that James was already on his second, and Will on his second but had gotten some eggnog on his shirt. Scott picked up his pace, downing as many as he could as fast as he possibly could.

Rogue watched with interest, this is the most laid back she had ever seen Scott. Normally he was all up tight, almost as if he was afraid to have fun. James was moving quickly, and wasn't getting anything on him, Scott was moving a little quicker, and Will was moving as fast as he could, but had already gotten a little eggnog on his shirt from his first glass.

"They're at ten!" Thomas shouted as the crowd watched with anticipation as Scott set a cup down. The few seconds went by quickly for all, suddenly, Scott found himself without anymore cups full of eggnog, and stood up quickly to signify that he had won, just a split second or two before James had stood up. "Whoa, that's a close one." Thomas said with a laugh... "Let's see... Judges?" He looked over to see Gracie and Elise who were standing on the other side of the table then the rest of the crowd, in perfect view of the guys and the contest.

"I think it was Scott that won it there, he put his last cup down before James did." Elise said with a slight smile to Scott.

Scott smiled, and wiped his face with a napkin to get rid of any eggnog mustache. Will kept his eggnog mustache for a bit as a joke, and James smiled. "I know when I'm beat." He said and shook Scott's hand. "Good run there, for a while I doubted whether or not you'd even be classified as competition." He laughed as he said it, and even Scott laughed, man this was a fun Christmas.

Only problem was now that the eggnog-drinking contest was over, and the rush was done, Scott felt like his stomach was going to explode. "Ugh." He said sitting back down, feeling as if he was going to be sick.

"You okay?" Rogue asked coming up behind him and putting a gloved hand on his shoulder.

"I think... I think I drank all that eggnog a little too quick for my own good." He said with a slight groan as he stood up.

"Danielle! The prize!" Thomas yelled as Danielle came from the front of the large room.

"Here ya go." She said with a smile as she handed Thomas a small carton of eggnog liquid.

"To the winner!" Thomas said and the crowd cheered as he placed it in front of Scott.

Scott meanwhile looked like he was about to be sick. "Hey, uh... Where's the bathroom?" He asked with a funny look on his face.

Thomas laughed and pointed to a door on the far end of the small back room. "Straight through that door, and it's the first on your right." Thomas said with a small smile. "Don't worry, we'll wait for ya for the mistletoe toss."

Scott was up and running towards that backdoor before Thomas had even said that sentence. "You think he'll be alright?" Rogue asked turning to see Joe next to her.

"Oh, he'll be fine. Eggnog don't make ya throw up really, it just sort of... goes right through ya. He'll be out in a few minutes, and he'll be fine." Joe said with a nod. "Hey Thomas. I'm sitting the mistletoe toss out like usual, and Rogue better too." He said to the man who was talking to a few other people about four feet away.

Thomas gave a nod. "I understand. That's fine, be sure to watch and laugh at the rest of them though." He said with a smile and then went back to talking to the others that he had been talking to.

Joe turned back to Rogue. "I guess there's an advantage to having an uncontrollable power." He said shrugging.

"Hi there Joe." Said a voice Rogue didn't regocnize. Rogue was about to say something, but this other girl talking to Joe, not bothering to introduce herself to Rogue of course, interrupted her.

"Oh... a hi there Gracie." Joe said with a nervous smile. "Grace, this is Rogue, and Rogue this is Gracie." Joe said introducing them.

"Hi there." Rogue said with a slight nod.

"Oh, you're the girl that came with that Scott fellow right?" Grace asked looking to Rogue. "Some of us were happy to find that you weren't his girlfriend, at least those of us who were still single."

Joe shook his head a little and looked to Rogue. "You see Gracie here likes to rub it in the other girl's faces that she's got herself a man, and most of them don't."

Rogue raised a brow. "You got a boyfriend?" Rogue asked not really making it a big deal like this girl seemed to try and do.

"Ya. He's not a warrior though." She said shrugging a little.

"Alright everybody!" Thomas called out again. "It's time!" He laughed. "All you little teenagers get lined up! Girl's on this side, Boys on this side!" He yelled gesturing. "Now, we're going to wait for the new guy, Scott, so I can say the rules and things, but in the mean time, Girl's hold out your hands, and James and Amanda will tie on the blindfolds for everybody."

Rogue watched as James and Amanda went down the line of younger girls, all the girl's participating were eighteen and under, as were all the boys, and tied on blindfolds to the girls. "No peeking." James said to each of them with a laugh as he tied their blindfolds on.

Scott came back out, and was placed in the line of boys. "Alright now." Thomas said. "Now that we're all here I'll explain the rules." He began. "All the guys will get into a tight circle, facing inward, towards the center of the circle. Now, the girl's have blindfolds, and soon to be placed in their hands are a handful of plastic mistletoe, with a tag tied to each. The tag has a girl's name on it, but not the name of the girl that threw it, so there is virtually no way to cheat at this game." Thomas said with a smile. "Now move the girls into position, in a circle around the guys here." He said as James and Amanda guided the girl's into position since the boys were already in their circle.

"Lemme guess, the girl's toss the mistletoe into the air, and the boys catch it, and they kiss whose name is on the tag?" Rogue whispered to Joe since they were standing there by the food table just watching, both unable to participate.

Joe smiled. "Yup. It's a lot of fun, but I've never been able to participate." Joe said with an even tone in his voice.

Rogue could relate, she could never do something like this at a party, or anywhere for that matter.

"Now... Are you ready?" Thomas asked with a slight smile. And the participants nodded. "Girls, on your mark, get set... Toss!" The things of mistletoe flew up in the air, Rogue noticed that Scott's hit him in the head before landing in his hands and she just had to laugh slightly at that. "Alright, girl's remove your blindfolds." Thomas said as he came down from the table he was standing on and stood amongst them. "Let's see... We'll start with Will here." Rogue noticed that he had gotten a clean shirt since the eggnog-drinking contest. How exactly she didn't know.

"Alright Will... What's the name on the tag?" Thomas asked with a slight smile.

"I uh... I got my girlfriend actually." He said with a slight smile. "Elise." He laughed; since the two were already going out they kissed all the time, a stroke of luck for him. Elise came up and the two kissed quickly in front of the crowd, and then moved to the side as Thomas called more people up.

"Let's see... The new guy!" He grabbed Scott by the arm and led him to the table. "Alright Scott. Who's the owner of your particular mistletoe?"

Scott blushed, he really wasn't given a choice to enter this game, he was forced to. He almost felt envious of Rogue for not having to do this. "Uh... I got um..." He looked at the tag and raised a brow. "I actually can't read that handwriting." He said giving it over to Thomas.

Thomas laughed. "Yeah, James has got to work on that penmanship there." He said with a slight smile. "Let's see... And the winner is... Megan!" It was a girl that neither Scott nor Rogue had met yet, but she came up to the front. She was very beautiful in face and figure, with a nice skirt and blouse on.

"Hi there." She said softly as she came up to the front. She and Scott looked uncomfortably at each other for a moment until a certain voice started the crowd chanting.

"Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss." James started, getting the rest of the guys to go along with it and start chanting it too.

Scott blushed and Megan leaned in quickly and gave him a kiss on the lips and the crowd stopped chanting and clapped. By the time the applause was over Megan had pulled away from the kiss and it was over.

Thomas smiled. "There, now was that so hard?" He asked with a chuckle. "Alright... Next up... We have... Christian Van Hart!" And Scott and Megan moved off from the front of the crowd to make way for the other teen coming up. And the game continued on while Megan and Scott were talking.

"Well uh... That's an interesting tradition." Scott said with a slight shrug.

Megan giggled slightly. "I think Thomas likes it cause it gets people to lighten up a bit and have fun. Plus he knows that most of us teens dread it." She said with a slight smile. "You're a good kisser by the way, except that I wouldn't want to kiss you again with that eggnog taste in your breath." She giggled as she said it and looked over to see Rogue coming up to them, with Joe behind her.

"Oh uh... Hi Rogue. This is Megan. Megan this is Rogue." Scott introduced them, not knowing what else to do or say.

"It's nice tah meet you." Rogue said with an obviously forced polite smile.

"Same here." Megan said with a slight smile on her face. "Sorry if I kind of stole your boyfriend here, it was just a game." She said noticing the way that Rogue seemed to be really ticked off at her.

"He's not mah boyfriend." Rogue's voice rose ever so slightly, as if she was defending herself. "We just came together because we live at the same boarding school."

"Oh." Megan said with a slight smile. "So you're not taken then?" She asked looking to Scott. "Well that's good to know." She said with an ever so graceful smile. "Well, if you'll both excuse me, I have to get back to my friends over there, I hope to see you around Scott." She said as she left the small group.

Scott stood there for a moment silent, unsure of what to say or do, this whole kind of predicament was new to him. "Well uh... She's nice." He said shrugging and turning back to look at Rogue and Joe. "So... uh...anyway..."

Rogue stood as one betrayed, but said nothing, and there was an awkward silence, broken by Michael from the front of the large room, after the last guy went up and got his kiss in the game. "Hey Thomas! It's almost time!" He yelled out as Thomas looked up.

"So it is!" Thomas called looking at his watch. Suddenly to the amazement of both Rogue and Scott Thomas vanished from the table he was standing on. It was as if he just up and disappeared, he just simply wasn't there anymore. No smoke, no noise, and no Thomas. Suddenly he appeared in the front of the large front room. "Come on everybody!" Rogue noticed that he had a clock in his hands. "Mike, get the music ready!" Michael was already at the stereo, getting ready to press a button. Thomas put the clock on the wall, and it was then that Rogue noticed that it was two minutes from Midnight. "Chris! Get the lights!"

"I got them!" Chris hollered as the lights went off, all except for the lights on the Christmas tree in the front of the large front room, on the right of the door. The lights from the tree illuminated the clock enough so that you could see it.

"Ready people! Here we go!" Thomas called and Scott and Rogue noticed the entire room was doing a countdown till Christmas, the crowd speaking in unison.

"Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Merry Christmas!" The whole room erupted with a cheer as the music started to the tune of 'Silent Night.'

Then those in the room gathered around the Christmas tree and began singing the Christmas song, Scott and Rogue joined in too. It was a beautiful moment, and a great way to end such a great party.

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Coming Soon... Chapter 5: Santa's Delivery Boy


	5. Santa's Delivery Boy

A/N: I'd just like to thank all those people that have taken the time to review the story and its chapters thus far. Thank you. And please, keep doing it! Read a chapter, than review it! Tell me what you think! Critique my writing! Yell at me for any errors you find! Or compliment me on my originality! I don't care; just give me some small indication of what you think of this story, and the chapter that you read.

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Chapter 5: Santa's Delivery Boy

Scott and Rogue watched as most of the guests of the party left, saying goodbye to them as they went. Within ten minutes all that was left was Scott, Rogue, Thomas, and the Kings. "Well. Merry Christmas everyone." Thomas said with a slight smile. "Now." He said turning to look at Scott and Rogue. "I'm guessing since you two were leaving town when Mike found you that you don't have anywhere to stay for the night. You're more than welcome to stay here with us in the apartments upstairs. Scott if you don't mind you could room with James. And Rogue you could room with Jessica."

Scott nodded. "That sounds good. But we don't want to be a burden."

"Don't think another thing of it, you can help us clean up the mess from this party and we'll call it even." James said with a laugh as he and Jessica started cleaning, Jessica by picking up the garbage on the floor, and James by putting away the extra leftover food.

"Ah think we can do that." Rogue said with a nod as she went to help Jessica, and Scott started helping James. Thomas however had disappeared again while no one was looking, and Rogue didn't even notice that he was gone until she put a pile of trash into the garbage can that was set in the five-foot doorway between the large front room and the smaller back room. "Where'd he go?" She asked looking over to where Thomas had been standing a while before.

Jessica shrugged. "Probably to go change out of that Santa suit." She said as she dumped some garbage into the trash, picking up the lid and putting it back down with her tail. "He teleports. That's his mutation." She said as they continued cleaning.

"Really? That's interesting..." Rogue said thoughtfully as she was cleaning. "He seems like such a great guy, with the things he's done for Danielle and that Roger guy and all."

"Oh ya. He's smart, caring, and got a great sense of humor. He's like a jolly old Santa clause all the time." Jessica said with a smile.

"I was impressed that a community that large could be hidden so easily." Scott said joining in their conversation as he carried a tray of food past them into the smaller room. "I mean you'd think that all the noise we made tonight would draw some attention."

James laughed. "Not in this city." He said as he came back into the larger room. "And there was still a good number of people not even here tonight. Most had physical mutations that stop them from coming out in public." He said with a shrug.

"Yeah. I'm lucky though; I'm easy to hide, especially in winter. But I get to come to this every year, since we hold it here, and we live upstairs." Jessica said as she picked up a few cups from random coffee tables.

"Ah don't get it, if you live here then why'd you come in through the front door?" Rogue asked a little curious.

"Well we weren't here when the party started. James and I go to the Christmas Eve service at the church down the street every year. It's the only service that I risk going to, but James goes every Sunday." Jessica said as she put the lid back on the trashcan, after dumping a few handfuls of cups in it.

"You're religious then?" Scott asked as he came in from the smaller room.

"As a group no, the warriors aren't officially religious. But Jessica and I are Christians yes." James said as he took another tray into the smaller back room. "You'll be amazed to find how many different religions and backgrounds people come from in this group, we've got everything from Atheists, Jews, Christians, religions I can't even pronounce, everything."

"Not to try and change the subject, but I've been meaning to ask you two, are you two even interested in joining the group? Or are you already belonging to a different kind of group. Cause Danielle and a few of the other girl's were talking about that school ya'll go to, that school for mutants?" Jessica asked as she put the last piece of trash into the trash bag and tied the bag up.

"Well we do belong to another group, but I am interested in this group." Scott said to Rogue's surprise, and Rogue turned and looked at him. "Well I mean this is really cool, but we'll have to go back to the Institute eventually. I mean I have to finish high school, and I could never leave the friends I have at the institute, but still, this place and these people are amazing."

"I'm glad you think so." Thomas said from behind Rogue.

Rogue jumped nearly a mile high and yelled as Thomas suddenly spoke from behind her. "Man! Warn people or something when you go and do that!" She yelled.

Thomas laughed. "My apologies. I didn't mean to scare you." He said helping Jessica lift the bag from the trashcan by holding the trashcan down. He was now wearing a black shirt, black pants, black hiking boots, and a black trench coat, and Rogue noticed that he had heavily tinted sunglasses on his face.

"You like that whole matrix look huh?" Rogue asked as she regained her composure, and Scott and James rejoined them in the room.

"Oh yes. I actually find it to be quite comfortable, and the contacts get annoying after a while, so I have to wear the shades otherwise." Thomas explained.

"Why?" Scott asked, curious.

"Well you see my eyes... Are different than most other's. The pupils are extremely large and take in a lot of light. Thus my eyes are extremely sensitive. Plus the Irises on my eyes are black in color. Where most people have colors like brown, blue, or green, I have black. Thus I hide them with contacts to make them a normal color, or I wear the sunglasses so that my eyes can handle the light, and their true color still remain hidden. I suppose you could say I have an eye condition." He chuckled nervously. "I noticed you keep on the ruby shades. Is there a particular reason for that, or do you just like the look?"

"Well they keep me from blasting these concussion beams from my eyes all the time. So it's either wear them, or keep my eyes shut." Scott explained.

"That's a shame." James said as he came up. "Joe can't control his power none either. Neither can I, Thomas can't control his eyes, and Mike can't control his abilities neither, there's a lot of people in this group that can't control their mutations. Jessica can control some of her powers though."

Scott looked over to her. "I thought you said you're powers were just your physical mutations?" He asked with a brow slightly raised.

"I have retractable talons." She said coming closer and showing him the palm of her hand so he could see. "The only thing about my mutation I can control is when they come out, and when they go back in. Other than this quite useful tail of course." She stretched her fingers a bit and on the underside of each fingertip came a slightly curved talon. "They allow me to do fun things, like stick to walls, and stuff, they're.... What'd you call Thomas? Extremely..."

"Dense." Thomas finished her sentence. "They're extremely dense, they can stick into virtually any surface or material." He said with a slight smile.

Rogue felt kind of left out of the conversation, but she was listening anyway.

"They also make great weapons." She said with a slight smile.

"I can imagine." Scott said as he turned back to James. "What about you, I never even asked you about your mutation." He said with curiosity in his voice.

"Ya, that's right. What is your mutation?" Rogue chimed in looking to James.

"I have a metallic mimetic ability that allows me to transfer the properties of different alloys to my skin." He said rather scientifically. It was a definition that Thomas had provided him with of course, but they didn't need to know that. "Or here... In other words..." He held up his right hand. "If I touch a metal." He continued and raised his left hand over to his right, touching the gold ring on his right-gloved thumb with the index finger on his left. "I become the metal." His skin was now golden, entirely, quite shiny actually. His hair was even golden in color. "Luckily though I can still move the same, and breathe and stuff. Although we don't know exactly how, but it does increase my strength a bit."

"A bit?" Scott asked with a brow raised.

"Well... A lot, it increases by ten fold. So my max press usually is about three hundred pounds... so in this metallic form it would be about three thousand pounds. Of course this is just in the gold form. If I were a less dense material such as steel, my strength would be far less. The denser the material, the stronger my strength I suppose you could say." James explained as he began to change back to normal, starting from the top of his head, and finally finishing at the bottom of his feet. When he had changed back, he had fallen onto his hands and knees; Jessica was helping him to get up. "It takes a lot out of me to change back though. And if I don't change back within an hour, my body can't handle it anymore, and I collapse."

"It certainly sounds complicated." Rogue said as she came a bit closer. "What kind of rings do you have there?" She asked looking at his right hand, which had a glove on it, and a ring on each finger of the glove.

"Well the one on the thumb there is gold." He said as Jessica helped him stand back up to his full height. "The black one on the index finger there is Iron. The ring on the middle finger is steel. The one on the actual ring finger is silver, and the one on the pinky there is adanantium. Courtesy of Mr. Kamesama."

"How did Mr. Kamesama get his hands on adanantium?" Scott asked curiously, these people sure were powerful if they were capable of getting that; the only other adanantium he had ever heard of was on Wolverine's skeleton.

James shrugged. "I have no idea. Probably from the Japanese government or something."

"Interesting..." Rogue said as she placed on of her hands on her hip.

"Alright now. It's late, well after mid night, we need to be up when Joe gets back here tomorrow morning so that he can pick up the presents." Thomas said as he came back up to them. "Come on, everybody. Early morning."

Scott and Rogue followed James and Jessica through the smaller back room, down the small hallway, through the second door on the right, up the stairs, and down the hall again. "This is my room." James said as they came up to two doors on opposite sides of the hallway from each other.

"And this is my room." Jessica said gesturing to the door opposite James' room. "They're both not much... but, we call it home." Jessica said shrugging as she opened her bedroom door. Revealing a small room with a bunk bed a couch, and a T.V. James' room was identical, except that the bunk bed was separated with a bed on each side of the room.

"I'll see ya in the morning Scott." Rogue said as she headed through the door.

"Good night Rogue." Scott said as he went in, and both doors shut, leaving the hallway empty and silent as Thomas came up the stairs, and went into his room on the other end of the hall.

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Early Christmas Morning

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Scott was already down stairs in the large front room when Rogue got down there at about eight. Both were showered and ready for a new day. Scott was talking to Thomas as Rogue came up.

"Well I'd love to meet the professor, but I don't think he'll trust me all that much." Thomas said as Rogue came up.

"I don't think he'll care about the chip. He's a nice guy." Scott said as if defending the professor.

"I'll think about it. I'll tell you what. You two go with Joe. Meet some of the other Warriors, that weren't here last night, and by the time your deliveries are done your professor will more than likely be here, and we can all sit down and discuss whatever it is you want to." Thomas said with a nod.

"Alright." Scott agreed. "Oh, Morning there Rogue." Scott said now noticing her for the first time since she came down.

"Ah take it we're going to see the city with Joe?" She asked with a brow slightly raised.

"Well yeah. I figured we could see the sights a little, meet some of the people in this community that we didn't get to meet last night, and the professor is coming, so then after that we can all sit down and talk about things." Scott said, filling Rogue in, unsure of how long she had been there and how much she had overheard.

"Oh... Where's Jessica?" Thomas said looking around and not seeing her anywhere.

"Ah don't know, she wasn't in her bed when I woke up." Rogue said with a shrug. "Ah thought she would be down here already, so Ah just came down here."

"That's fine, she's probably up on the roof." Thomas said with a nod. "Oh, if you want some food in the back room there's a fridge. It's got plenty of leftovers from last night, or there's some cereal on the top of it, or there's eggs in there. Oh, and the microwave should be on the counter next to it if you wanted to heat something up and the stove works, if you wanted to cook some eggs."

"Thanks." Rogue said with a nod. "Scott, did you want anything?" She asked as she headed towards the smaller back room.

"No, thanks, I already had some breakfast." Scott said with a slight smile to Rogue.

"Okay." She said as she went back to make breakfast.

"So when do you suppose that Joe will be here?" Scott asked turning to see Thomas.

"In all honesty? I thought he would be here already. But he should be here in about an hour at the latest." Thomas said and then sat up really quickly. "Oh, I forgot something..." Thomas said as he stood up, he picked up a remote and hit a button towards the bottom of it. Not ten seconds after he did so a man looking to be about Thomas' age came out of the door in the back of the smaller back room. "AI-9, I need two pins." Thomas said with a slight nod.

"Yes sir." The man said quite blankly to the surprise of Rogue, and then he turned and left again through the door he came.

"Who, or what, was that?" Scott asked confused.

"Oh, that was AI-9. Or his full name, Project: AI-9. Or his nickname, Alfred Ivan the Ninth." Thomas said with a slight chuckle. "James thought up the nickname actually. He's an artificial intelligence android that I created. I've been working on him for years, but I got the basics down and finally put it all together a few months ago." Thomas explained.

Rogue came in with a plate of food and joined the conversation. "So you built him?" She asked slightly skeptical as she began to eat her food.

"Ya, he actually doesn't look like that, that's just the hologram that I developed so that he wouldn't startle anyone." Thomas said. "I'm not quite normal in my intelligence either you see, Katashi used to accuse me of taking Mental Steroids."

"Who's Katashi?" Scott asked looking slightly confused.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sometimes I just call him by his first name. That's actually the first name of Mr. Kamesama." Thomas explained with a slight chuckle. "Anyway." He said as AI-9 came back through the door. "I wanted to give you these." He got up and met AI-9 as he was walking towards him. "Thank you Alfred." Thomas said with a slight laugh. "I always feel like Batman when I use that nickname." He said with a slight chuckle as he came back to Rogue and Scott. "Here ya go..." He handed something small and golden in color to Scott.

Scott held it in his palm and looked at it. It was a gold pin that could go on like a collar of a shirt or something in the shape of a W. "What's this for?" Scott asked as he held it in his fingers.

"It's our own secret emblem I guess you could say. Each member has one, and if you ever see someone wearing one you know that he's a warrior." Thomas explained. "And here, if I ever need the person wearing this for like a mission or something, then I activate this, and this thing beeps." He said. "But I don't think I'll ever use it for either of you, you two are more like honorary members, so you use the other feature. If you ever need us for anything, you press this button here." He showed them a small button on the top of the middle arch in the W. "And this will contact us, and let us know that you need us. It will also activate the tracer inside of the pin so that we can find you." He said with a slight smile.

"Wow. That's pretty sophisticated stuff." Rogue said as she took hers and put her plate down. "Thank you." She said with a slight nod.

"You're very welcome." Thomas said with a smile as both Scott and Rogue pinned their pins on them. Scott pinned his on his shirt collar, and Rogue pinned hers on her shirt's cuff near the glove.

It was that moment that Joe came through the front door. "I'm here!" He called not realizing at first that anyone was in the front room. "Oh..." He chuckled as he looked up and saw them staring at him. "Well at least I'm not terribly late. I'm ready to take those presents now, and I'll have them dropped off by noon. Hi, Rogue. Scott. Merry Christmas." He said nodding to each.

"Merry Christmas." Rogue said in greeting as she stood up. "It seems like Scott and I are coming with you if that's okay." She said as she threw away her empty plate and put on her coat.

"Ya, that's fine." Joe said picking up the red bag that was in front of the Christmas tree. "Let's get these things delivered and you can meet a few people on the way." He said with a nod. "You comin Scott?"

"Yup." Scott said as he stood up. "It was great talking with you Thomas. Thanks for the gifts. And you'll see, you'll like the professor." He said with a nod as he headed towards the door, putting his coat on along the way.

"Off we go then. Santa's Delivery boy service." Joe joked as he opened the door and held it open for Scott and Rogue. This was going to be fun.

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Coming Soon... Chapter 6: Deliveries


	6. Deliveries

Disclaimer: Real quick, I do not own the X-Men. I do however own the Warriors and the characters mentioned in the group, excluding Mr. Robaldi, and Hans. Who are based off of characters in a movie I saw a few years ago, and the song is from that same movie. Don't sue me. I have absolutely no money.

Author's Note: I'm beginning to think that no one is even reading this anymore, there haven't been any reviews since chapter 3. So if you read this, please review it, I'm getting tired of begging. I might be a little slower in my updates now, I've been updating it pretty much every single day, I might be made to cut back on that, so don't worry if I don't update as often as I have been, I'll still be working on the story.

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Chapter 6: Deliveries

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Rogue and Scott walked along the streets of New York City with Joe in the lead, carrying a big red sack full of presents, it was early Christmas morning, and the streets were the quietest that they ever were in this city. A few cars here and there, but nothing major going on. "So where exactly are we headed?" Scott asked as they walked.

"Well the closest to here is Central Park. So we're going there first." Joe answered as they turned the corner, and central park came into view.

"Who lives in Central Park?" Rogue asked curiously, wondering if someone actually lived there, or if that was just where they were meeting someone.

"A guy by the name of Michael Wulf. His mutation is rather... complicated. You'd have to see it to believe it." Joe said as they got nearer to the park.

"Perhaps we shouldn't talk about this out here." Scott said, looking around. Even though there was hardly anyone around, and no one with in hearing distance of them. Seriously, who would be walking outside at eight o'clock Christmas morning? No one, if anyone was out they were in their cars, but Scott was still uptight about the whole thing.

"We can talk about it once we get into the park then if you want." Joe said as they crossed the street, entering the park.

"Where does this Michael live?" Rogue asked as she walked a little quicker to catch up to Joe.

"See that thick clump of trees just over there?" Joe asked pointing. "He lives in there." Joe said as they entered the park, and started down a path towards where Joe had pointed.

"That group of evergreen trees?" Scott asked as he too quickened his pace to keep up with Joe.

"Yup. That's it." Joe said with a nod as he continued to walk.

The morning was peaceful, and this silent moment in the conversation gave Rogue a chance to listen to the sounds of the park. Mostly she heard cars, but there were some birds singing, and things of that nature.

"Yo Mike!" Joe called out as they entered the grove of trees; Rogue snapped out of her daydream, she hadn't even realized that they'd arrived yet. "You here?" Joe asked.

"Of course I'm here. Where else would I be?" Asked a deep voice from behind a few other pine trees.

Rogue and Scott maneuvered through the trees after Joe, and were soon met face to face with Mike. At first Rogue held back a scream, he was intimidating, but Scott just looked at him in wonder. There he was, looking like something out of a fantasy book, a huge, seven foot tall at least, human like tree. His skin was like bark, his hair was like Ivy, not to mention that he had ivy growing all over him, but none of it was in the ground, and his hands and feet were more like roots than hands and feet. He was quite long limbed and smiled at them as they came up to him. "And who is this?" He asked with the same deep voice he had used before.

"Michael, this is Scott. And this is Rogue." Joe said gesturing to each of them. "Scott and Rogue, this, is Michael." Joe said with a slight smile. "We came to give you your Christmas present, since you couldn't make it to the party last night." Joe explained as he opened the red sack and looked into it, fishing around for a moment. "Here ya go..." He pulled out a small little pouch like thing, wrapped in green wrapping.

"Why thank you." He said as Rogue watched in horror and amazement as some of the ivy growing all over him formed into a vine, and took the package delicately, and brought it back to Michael. It was as if the vine had a mind of it's own, but followed Mike's orders. He opened the wrapping with his long stiff fingers and opened the bag. "Oh bless my soul..." He said looking into the bag. He pulled out a few packets of something and showed them to Rogue, Scott, and Joe. "Seeds! Now I can start my garden come springtime." He said delighted. "Thank you very much." He said with a nod as he stood up straight, and another vine sprouting from Mike's back dug up some earth, and set the bag with the seeds in it in the ground. "They will be safe there until spring." He said with a slight smile, if he could smile at all.

"You're quite welcome, and Merry Christmas!" Joe said with a nod. "Now, I'm sorry to come and go like this, but we must be off, I need to deliver these other gifts right away."

The tree-like thing nodded. "Of course! Merry Christmas! Come back soon I hope." He said with a smile. "And it was nice to meet you both." He said to Scott and Rogue as they began to follow Joe out of the large clump of trees.

After they had walked a bit in silence away from the park Scott was the first to speak. "That was... Amazing. How does he stay hidden?" Scott asked referring to Mike.

Joe laughed. "I was wondering when you'd start with the questions." He said with a smile as he turned slightly to see Scott. "Well it's quite simple for him to hide really, if he stands still, with his arms raised up, he looks just like a tree."

"What does he eat? How old is he?" Rogue asked both questions right after each other, also obviously curious about this fellow.

"Well he doesn't eat. At least not in the way we think of it. You see Thomas ran an exam on him, Michael there, he's... well he's a plant. He absorbs rays from the sun as plants do, and turns it into food. And he absorbs nutrients and water from the soil and air." Joe explained. "And as for his age... Well, I think he told Jessica that he was Seventeen."

"Seventeen?" Scott asked skeptically. "He doesn't look seventeen. He doesn't even sound seventeen."

Joe shrugged. "We figured that his voice and height were side effects of his mutation." He answered.

"That was... That was weird. I've never met a mutant like that." Scott confessed.

Joe laughed. "Neither did I until a few weeks ago. He's technically the newest edition to the group; I'm the one that found him. You see these guys that wanted my money were chasing me through the park. Well I didn't actually have any money on me, but they didn't believe me. When they pulled guns, I ran." Rogue's facial expression turned to one of shock and Scott's to one of understanding as he continued. "Well lucky for me I crossed paths with Michael, and he, ya see, he hates machines and guns and things. So these guys are running after me, and all of a sudden these four vines come out of nowhere, and take their guns, and then the vines turn on them, scared them off." He shrugged. "Then I saw Mike, and I got to admit, I screamed the first time I saw him, if you ever saw him angry like he was at those guys, you'd scream too. At first he ran, but I caught up to him, which I tell ya, wasn't easy, he's got them long legs, and sure he moves slowly, but he covers a lot of ground." He paused and took a breath. "Finally, I caught up to him, apologized, thanked him, and then I got him to join the community, you know that whole deal. He stays here, where he likes to be, and then we come and hang with him."

"That's an amazing story." Scott confessed.

"Yeah, but now it's over. Cause we're here." Joe said as he stopped walking, and turned towards a large building. A sign just above the front door read 'Robaldi Music Center.'

"Who lives here?" Rogue asked as she followed Joe and Scott up the stairs, through the doors, and into the building.

"Ari Robaldi." Joe answered as they came into the front room. "Let's see..." He rang the bell, and not a moment later a man dressed neatly in a nice suit but without a suit coat came from the hall. "Merry Christmas Hans. Is Mr. Robaldi in?"

"Yes sir. He's in his private quarters at the top floor, but I must insist that you not disturb him." The man answered politely. "You know how he likes his privacy."

Joe nodded. "We'll only be a minute, I know the way, you don't need to announce us, and he knows me, he'll be happy to see me I think." Joe said as they started towards the back stair. Hans sighed and turned back into the hallway as Scott and Rogue just followed Joe.

"You must have some really odd characters in this community of yours." Rogue commented as they started up the stairs.

"Oh, not really. Mr. Robaldi is just very private, you'll see why. I must warn you though, he is scarred on his right side, you must not draw attention to it, or act shocked because of it, that will anger him." Joe said as they continued up the stairs, lugging the red sack all the way, careful not to damage any presents.

Finally they made it to the top of the stairs, it was a penthouse type deal, and no one ever really came this far up, and there was an electronic key slot next to the door. Joe pulled a card out of his wallet, and swiped it through, and the door unlocked. Joe opened it. Inside was a large carpeted room, looking like the foyer of an opera house, or a theater, with large wooden doors to the right of them leading into what would be the theater, or the main room. Inside the main room was a fireplace, the only light in the room was given from it's flames, and a single chair, though eloquently decorated; it looked like a private study type of room. Next to the study was a room with a piano, and already wonderful music had reached their ears. Mr. Robaldi was at the piano with his back to them playing fiercely, his hands moving up and down the keys, playing it with excellent skill. And then, the most beautiful thing Scott and Rogue had ever heard began to happen. Mr. Robaldi was singing. His voice was heavenly, the likes of which was never heard on this earth by them before, it sounded like something out of a dream, and the notes sung matched with the notes played on the piano perfectly.

"We've heard the tale since we were young,

Heard the songs that have been sung,

About an evil spell...

Someone beautiful is cursed,

We feel sad through every verse,

Till a kiss and all is well!"

The entire group was stunned to silence by the beauty of the song and the music until Joe, unknowingly; let the red sack drop from his hand, falling to the floor. Suddenly the woven words and notes that were hanging in the air vanished, the feelings of pleasantness gone, as Mr. Robaldi stopped playing, and spun around and up, grabbing a cane as he did so to stand. "Who is there?" He called out coming into the light of the fireplace. Rogue would have shrunken back and gasped, if Joe had not warned her not to do such a thing. The right side of his face was horribly scarred; it was barely recognizable as human, whereas the left was smooth and beautiful, as if he had once been a prince out of a fairy tale. Something was wrong with his entire right side in fact, as his right hand held a cane and he used it to walk, still limping. "Who is there?" He called again, and Joe answered.

"I'm sorry Mr. Robaldi, it's me, Joe." Joe said snapping out of his daze. "We came to bring you your Christmas present since you couldn't make it to the party last night.

"Who is, 'we'?" He asked angrily, and Rogue felt as if this figure half shrouded in darkness were about to lunge at them, and kill them all.

"Oh... Mr. Robaldi, this is Scott and Rogue." Joe said as politely as he could. "They came with me to bring you your gift since they're new to the group and Thomas thought it would be good for them to meet some of those that they didn't last night."

"Well Thomas was wrong, leave the gift and get out!" The man shouted as he turned his back on them, and walked back into the smaller room.

Joe did as he was told, placing the package wrapped in snowman wrapping paper on the chair next to the fire place, and leaving, motioning for Rogue and Scott to follow. Scott began to, but then realized that Rogue had not yet followed them, she was still in a dazed like expression, staring off after Mr. Robaldi. He quickly grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her towards the door, shaking her out of her daze and she followed.

They didn't talk again until they were down the stairs, out the door, and well on their way to their next stop. Even then they seemed reluctant to break the silence. "That was even more strange than meeting Michael." Scott said.

"Ah think... Ah don't know... It was strange... But it was wonderful." Rogue said with a slight smile. "Ah mean, did you hear him playing that piano, and his voice? It was lahke he was an angel."

"He didn't act like an angel when he found out we where there." Scott countered, as if this was a debate.

"That's just Mr. Robaldi, once you get to know him, he really is quite nice, I know that's hard to believe, but he only acted that way because he didn't know you two, and he never likes to be interrupted that much." Joe said trying to explain the best he could.

"Why is he in the warriors, is his mutation all those scars?" Rogue asked slightly curious.

Joe shook his head. "No, he has never told us, but we think that his mutation is actually his voice, and his music. The scars he won't tell us where he got them from."

"Ah see... His voice was wonderful... Ah want to go back, just to listen for a while... Can we?" Rogue asked hopefully.

"No. Trust me, if he started singing again we'd be there until he stopped singing and found us. That's the trick of his mutation, I don't know exactly what it is, but something about his voice lures you to him, it's like he's hideous on the outside, but truly beautiful and wonderful on the inside." Joe shrugged. "I don't know. I hope he liked his Christmas gift."

"He didn't seem wonderful on the inside to me, he seemed... Like a beast, just like a Beast, you know from that Disney movie, really horribly angry." Scott said still not getting where they coming from thinking that the man was wonderful.

"From what Ah remember, that Beast got that Belle to fall in love with him." Rogue said with a slight smirk. "So he couldn't have been all bad underneath. Neither can Mr. Robaldi."

Joe nodded. "He's a complicated man. He never wholly opens up to anyone, but he really is quite wonderful, he does some great things with his money and such, and helps people as much as he can, he just likes his privacy... For obvious reasons." Joe said as he stopped suddenly. Just in front of an apartment building. "This is our second to last stop." He said with a slight nod. He went up and rang the bell on one of the room, a teen's voice from the intercom replied.

"Yeah. Who's there?"

"Come on Nathan. It's me. Joe. I brought your Christmas present from the party last night since you didn't come." Joe answered into the intercom.

"All right. I'll be right down. Hold on a sec." The voice replied.

Rogue and Scott waited patiently at the bottom of the stars, as Joe waited by the door. Finally a minute or two after the whole intercom conversation a boy about Rogue's age appeared in the doorway. Dressed from head to toe in Gothic clothing. Rings and piercing all over his body, a black T-shirt with long sleeve fish net type shirt over that. Rings all over his fingers, some baggy cargo shorts with chains all over them, held up by a belt with a skull as the buckle. The boy had dark skin, and was wearing black lipstick and nail polish. It was hard to tell that he was even a guy. He had a spiked dog collar on, with spike bracelets on each wrist. "Yeah?" He asked looking at Joe, and glancing at Scott and Rogue.

"Here. We brought you your present." Joe said digging through the bag, and producing a box wrapped in black wrapping paper.

Nathan took the box, and it was then Rogue noticed on his right ring finger was a ring different from the others, it had a skull on it, and the eyes in the skull were glowing red. "Thanks." He said and opened it there, in front of them. "Cool. More rings." His face always held this blank expression; it was like he wasn't truly enthusiastic or happy to see them at all. He put a few on his fingers, but then kept the rest in the box.

"Yeah... Well... Uh... Merry Christmas." Joe said with a nod and a smile as he headed back down the stairs.

"Yeah, whatever." And the door was shut again and Nathan was headed back upstairs.

"Okay, so onto the last stop." Joe said with a smile as he past Rogue and Scott and started walking again.

"I see that a lot of different kinds people make up this group." Scott said with a slight smile as they followed behind Joe.

"Yeah. Nathan there, he's extremely different from most of us kids. You saw that ring right? The ring with the glowing eyes?" Joe asked looking back to see Rogue and Scott.

"Yeah, Ah saw it, he had some nice rings and stuff there." Rogue said as they continued walking.

"Well that's something from Thomas, that he made especially for him there. You see Nathan's skin produces these chemical toxins, than when they come in contact with organic tissue... well, they destroy it. Vaporize it." Joe started to explain.

"So that's his mutation?" Scott asked.

"Yup. That's his mutation. He kills anything organic that he comes into contact with." Joe nodded.

"Wow... harsh." Rogue said looking back towards the apartment buildings where Nathan was.

"Well that's why Thomas developed that ring. It's a... Well I don't know what it is exactly but what it does is cancel out Nathan's X-Gene, and thus it cancels out his power." Joe explained as best as he could. "So as long as he wears the ring, he's fine, but he still is all depressed and Goth like and stuff all the time."

"And what's wrong with that? Ah happen to like Gothic stuff, and Ah thought he looked kind of cool with it all." Rogue said with a slight blush coming to her cheeks, which Scott noticed. "He looked kinda cute."

"I wouldn't." Joe warned. "He swore never to have that kind of a relationship after he lost his last girlfriend."

"That's a shame." Scott said not really sadly, but almost relieved. "How'd he lose his last girlfriend, did she dump him because he was a mutant or something?"

"No..." Joe hesitated. "She died."

"Oh... How'd that happen?" Rogue asked still not putting the obvious pieces into place.

"She kissed him." Was Joe's simple and stunning answer, and both Rogue and Scott were silent for a good long time.

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Coming soon... Chapter 7: Hospitals and Professors


	7. Hospitals and Professors

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. But I do own the Warriors. So don't go using them without my permission! Ha!

Author's Note: Um... not much to say. I liked the fact that I got a review recently, and it's okay, I understand vacations, hopefully this will be a good chapter, if it isn't... well... then tell me. If it is, tell me. Oh, and sorry that it took me so long to get this chapter up.

Chapter 7: Hospitals and Professors

Joe, Rogue, and Scott were walking along the streets of New York City. It had gotten colder as the morning went on, and they had met some strange people who were in this group called the Warriors.

Rogue wondered what the professor would think about it all, and if Joe was going to check out the institute like he said he would at the party the night before. Right now that party seemed like it had been ages away, and they were walking in a silence that had been hanging around since they left Nathan's apartment.

Scott was more concerned with where they were going, but he too was thinking what the professor would think about it all, and if any of the kids from the group would come back to the institute with them. Perhaps that Jessica King would come, the professor could give her a holo-watch like he did Kurt, and she could attend a regular school.

Joe however knew where they were going, and was walking at a quickening pace, he wanted to get there and get back to the Hub before noon, like he told Thomas he would. Right now though it didn't look like they were going to make it back to the Hub in time.

"So Joe... Where are we going?" Rogue asked finally breaking the silence as they walked.

"County Hospital." Joe answered. "Did you guys hear about that angel character? The girl that he saved from the river is still in the hospital, word is she's alright, but they still kept her overnight, and it's a shame that anyone should have to spend Christmas in a hospital room."

Rogue nodded slowly, remembering that part of last night, Scott had comforted her when she was crying by putting his arm around her, and they were there when news came that she would be all right. "Yeah. So you're going to take her a present?" She asked.

"Yeah. Well kind of. This present is more for her parents than her, but I have a small toy in here of some kind for her." Joe answered as they turned yet another corner.

"So you have a present for her and her parents? How do you know her parents will be there?" Scott asked joining into this conversation for the first time.

"If it were your little daughter there in the hospital on Christmas morning, wouldn't you be there? Hundred bucks says that not only are they there, but they spent the night there with her." Joe said with a slight smirk.

"Yeah. That makes sense I guess." Scott nodded.

"So how much farther do we have to go? Ah'm starting to get tired." Rogue said as she put her hands in her pockets.

"Not too much farther, the hospital is at the end of the next block there." Joe said pointing up ahead.

Elsewhere

An old man covered with a heavy trench coat was walking out of the hospital building, he had been hoping to get one last chance to speak to someone, but that person wasn't to be found there. He was annoyed at his failure last night, beaten by two of Xavier's little pet projects, he spent Christmas Eve alone like usual.

As he walked out of the hospital's parking lot he began down the street, walking away from Rogue, Scott, and Joe because he hadn't seen them walking towards the hospital, when he heard something in an alley. Suddenly he found himself pushed into the alley, and surrounded by four teenagers, each standing in a fighting stance, with switchblades pulled out.

"Make it easy, hand over any money you've got, and that nice coat." One of them said with a smirk.

Magneto's eyes glowed with fury, as he was about to use his powers, and turn from an old man and easy pickings, to these boys' worst nightmare. But he never got the chance. Just after the one had finished speaking, this huge muscular man, slightly older than the rest of them, knocked him across the alley. "I should say something really intimidating and witty right now, but I don't feel like it, so how's about I just skip that part, and beat you all to a bloody pulp?" The man asked with a smirk just before the remaining three attempted to jump him.

The first found his knife pulled from his hand and tossed up onto the fire escape. The man himself found himself on the ground, being thrown down by the big guy. The second found himself kicked back into the opposite wall, past the old man. However, the third man had cut him with the knife across his collarbone almost, running diagonally from the left side of his chest to his left shoulder. A narrow and shallow wound, but it still hurt. The man soon afterwards found the big guy's right fist against his jaw, and he was down and out. The rest of his buddies had already taken off, and the old man was just standing there with a smirk.

"You're welcome." The big guy said as he breathed deep. "Now if you'll excuse me, I think I should go to the E.R. just over there and get this patched up." He said gesturing to his cut.

"Why should I thank you?" The old man asked referring to the big man's 'your welcome' comment. "I didn't need your help."

"You don't have to, it would just be polite. I only did what I could to make sure those guys didn't rob or kill you. I would have done that anyway, even if I had known you didn't need my help." He answered as he headed towards the mouth of the alley.

"But if I am in no danger why risk your life to help me?" The old man asked staying where he was.

"I wasn't risking my life. I knew I could beat them, and I knew I had something to fall back on if things got going for the worst. But even if I were risking my life, I would have done it because it was the right thing to do." The big man said as he turned around fully, and walked out of the alley. He turned to look back, but the old man was gone, disappeared from the dead end alley.

County Hospital

Joseph, Rogue, and Scott had made it into the hospital, and were approaching the room of the girl that they were there to visit when Joe spoke up again. "You two can come into the room if you want to, but if you don't want to, you can wait outside. It'll only be a quick drop off and then we'll leave."

"Ah think we'll come in with ya, just to see how it all pans out." Rogue answered for both of them, though Scott was more content with staying outside.

"Here we are." Joe said with a slight nod. "Come on." Joe tapped on the door lightly, and slid it open as he came in. The faces in the room were all turned towards him, the nurse, the parents, and even the little girl's. He held the red Santa sack up so they could see it. "Merry Christmas." He said with a slight smile as he dug into the bag. He first pulled out a small green package, and handed it to the girl.

"I'm afraid that you're not allowed in here." The nurse said with caution.

"I'll be gone in a second." Joe said as he walked over to the girl's parents.

"Hey, it's a china doll!" Exclaimed the girl in happiness. It was a beautifully crafted doll, it looked like an antique, and it was quite expensive in appearance, both of these gifts were from Mr. Kamesama, but they were titled. 'From: Nicholas'

The parent's smiled as Joe handed them a red package, tied with green ribbon. "Merry Christmas." He said with a nod. "Use this as best you can."

"Merry Christmas." The mother responded and turned to look at the husband who had the gift in his hands.

Clearly everyone in the room except for the girl playing with her new doll was half worried and half confused. But while the father began to open the gift Joe walked out of the room silently, pulling Rogue and Scott with him. They didn't talk until they were down the hall and around the corner. Joe swung the empty Santa sack in his hand as Scott spoke up. "So what did you get the parents?"

"The red box contains about... well I think Mr. Kamesama said it was around thirty-thousand dollars in cash." Joe answered; both Rogue and Scott were shocked.

"Are you serious?" Scott asked with the shock still evident in his voice.

"Oh yes. It's to help with the hospital bill, and make sure that girl's Christmas is still a happy one, that her dreams can still come true." Joe answered.

"That was so sweet of him, he looked so mean when I saw him." Rogue said remembering how the Asian man had glared at them when she first saw him at the party and Thomas was called over to them and away from Mr. Kamesama.

"Yeah well... He just did it mostly cause Thomas begged him enough." Joe said with a slight chuckle. "Hey, James! What the hell are you doing here?" Joe yelled over as they walked past the waiting room, surprising Rogue and Scott and making them look to their right where Joe was waiting in the triangle with a nurse applying a bandage to his cut, the cut running from the left side of his chest to his left shoulder.

"Got cut up saving some old geezer from getting mugged." James said shrugging and giving a wince as he did so.

"What? Where did that happen?" Rogue asked, obviously not realizing that this sort of thing happened to the Warriors all the time. And even before they joined the warriors, this is what happens in a city, you learn to deal.

"A few minutes ago over in the alley behind old man Fishman's." James said. "Don't worry about it, I'll be patched up and ready to go soon, it was only four little ones."

"Four?" Scott asked with a brow raised.

"Yeah, I got the drop on them though, so it wasn't so hard. Don't worry, I'll be out of here in a jiffy." James said as the nurse finished up. "Besides, you should worry about yourselves. Thomas bet me thirty bucks you weren't gonna make it back in time, and it looks like he's about to win." He smiled pointing to the clock on the wall, it was eleven forty, and they had twenty minutes left.

Joe smacked his forehead. "Aw man." He hung his head. "Hey James, any way I can borrow some cab fare?" He asked hopefully.

James laughed. "Sure, take the thirty there from my coat, it should get yeah there it's only a few blocks. Of course that's my bet money, so if you don't get there on time, it's your job to come up with Thomas' thirty bucks."

"Deal." Joe said with a laugh. "Come on, we got to hurry." Joe said to Scott and Rogue as he turned and almost ran out the front doors.

The three made it to the curb in front of the hospital quicker than Rogue thought was humanly possible. Joe flagged down a cabby by use of the same technique Scott had used the night before, standing in the street. Luckily this cab was empty. Joe gave the directions and sat on the window seat next to Rogue, with Scott on the other side of her. "We might make it." He said with a slightly relieved smile.

"We're not going to make it." Scott said as he sat back in his seat.

"We'll make it." Joe said reassuringly.

The cab ride was quickly over, as the Hub was only a few blocks from the hospital. Joe was the first out, he quickly paid the cabby as Rogue and Scott got out. After Rogue handed him the Santa sack the trio rushed into the Hub. There sat an old, bald guy in a wheelchair that Joe could only assume was this Professor Xavier, and next to him sat Thomas on the couch. "Did we make it?" He asked glancing to the wall clock. They had made it with a five-minute bumper.

"Barely." Thomas answered with a nod. "Professor Charles Xavier I'd like you to meet Joseph McKinley." Thomas said gesturing to the teen. "Joe, this is Professor Xavier. Joe's the one that has been running around with Scott and Rogue."

"It's a pleasure to meet you young man." Xavier said with a slight nod.

"It's nice to meet you too." Joe said with a return nod. "Rogue told me some stuff about your school and such."

Rogue gave a slight smile. "Yeah, Ah did. Professor you should see all the people they have here in this community." Rogue said as she walked up to him. "It's amazing."

"That I know." Xavier said with a slight smile. "Thomas here has just told me all about the members and such of the Warriors." He turned back to look at Thomas. "I was at first surprised that this was so overlooked by Cerebro. But seeing as the machine is currently damaged, there's nothing I can do to check how or why that happened."

Scott nodded. "I was wondering how that happened." He added in his two cents. "I guess we'll never know."

"I could tell you part of the reason." Thomas said with a slight smile. "After I first met Michael I began to work on a project of mine." He began. "Mike is the telepath that brought you to us you see." Rogue and Scott both nodded. "Well he was the second to join. A twelve-year-old boy, with uncontrollable powers, I did the best I could to calm him down and such and I began working on something to help him. Doing so I devised this." He took his finger and folded his right ear forward displaying what looked remarkably similar to the computer like replacements of Danielle's vocal cords. "It's a neuron scrambler, or in other words, a telepath blocker. It creates a field that scrambles any neuron waves or transmissions that enter it. Thus my mind is technically untouchable from Telepathy." He paused slightly. "I told Scott about it earlier this morning, it was the reason I was hesitant of meeting you Professor, I was afraid that you would not trust me."

Xavier nodded. "I will admit that it is indeed a strange thing. A remarkable device no doubt, but I believe that you made it with no intentions of harm or danger to others."

"Right. I was just trying to help out Mike, but I tested it on myself first." He said with a slight nod. "When I presented it to Michael, he turned it down, he wanted to use his abilities to help us locate others to bring into the community. Which he has done very well." Thomas said gesturing to the three teenagers who were still standing. "Now please sit." He said standing up. "Is there anything I can get you three to drink, or you professor? Some tea, coffee, eggnog, hot chocolate?"

"Ah'll take some hot chocolate." Rogue answered.

"And some tea sounds wonderful, thank you." Xavier answered as the three teenagers sat down.

"Coming right up. Anything for you Scott, Joe?" He asked as he started towards the back room.

"No thanks." Both Joe and Scott said at the same time. They gave each other a weird look and then turned their attention to the professor.

"Rogue told me about how the people boarding in your mansion are all mutants." Joe spoke up talking to Professor Xavier. "And how they attend the regular school nearby for their actual education, but you teach them how to protect themselves and use their powers?"

"That's correct." Xavier nodded with a slight smile to Rogue. "I do what I can to help others with their abilities."

"Do you think you could help me?" Joe asked holding up his gloved hands.

"Well that depends, what is your power?" Xavier asked with a brow slightly raised.

"Let's see... Thomas had a really scientific explanation for it... Ah yes... I absorb the bio-genetic data of other beings and replace it with my own for a set period of time." Joe said sounding rather proud of him self for having remembered it all. "In other words, if I touch someone, I become them. I get their looks, their voice, their powers, everything but their mind and stuff for about six hours. I can't change back to myself during that time, and I can't absorb anyone during that time, I have the other person's powers, not my own."

Xavier was impressed. "It seems that you and Rogue have quite a lot in common." Rogue nodded at that one and Xavier continued. "I can only say that given the chance I would try to help you develop your powers so that you could control them, and if I am unable to do that than I would do everything possible to help you cope with them."

Joe nodded, but remained silent. He wanted to control his powers, but he didn't want to just ditch the others here. There were all the other kids in the community that needed a place like Xavier's far more than he did. Suddenly Thomas came back in the room with a few of the drinks. Handing Rogue her hot chocolate, and the Professor his tea.

"Well I was going to keep it a surprise." He said with a slight smile and a twinkle in his eye from behind the heavily tinted sunglasses. "But the Professor and I were discussing something along the lines of an exchange program. You know that there are a lot of kids in this group that can't go to school. Jessica for example, you Joe for another, Nathan, and a few others, and I know that all of you could use some help with your abilities. So I'm actually working out an arrangement for you all to attend Xavier's Institute."

"Really?" Joe, Rogue, and Scott asked at the same time, and Thomas gave a slight chuckle.

"Really." Thomas said with a slight nod. "Now before we go into further detail discussing this. Do you want to go to Xavier's?"

"Yes!" Joe almost shouted. "I mean... If everyone else goes, I'll go."

Thomas laughed. "Of course. I'll tell you what. Go make some calls from my room. Gather all the teens. Oh, and you better get James King and Rebecca Davis in here too."

"Well James should be on his way here after he gets out of the emergency room, but I'll call everyone else." Joe said as he stood up and headed towards the back door.

"Hey wait a minute. James is in the E.R.? What happened?" Thomas asked with a brow raised.

"He got a little cut up saving some old guy from some muggers." Joe answered.

"Oh." Thomas replied and calmed back down. "He didn't use his powers did he?"

"Not if he got cut up." Joe said with a smile. "Now can I go and make those calls?"

"Yeah, yeah, go ahead." Thomas said, thinking to himself. Suddenly he remembered his guests, just moments after Joe had left. "Oh, I'm sorry about that. Sometimes I space out when I get to thinking." He said with an apologetic smile. "Now what were we talking about?"

Coming soon... Chapter 8: The Gathering


	8. The Gathering

Author's Note: And now I shall do something I haven't done in a while, respond to your reviews. Oh yeah, and I'm sorry this took so long to get up. Going back to school and all I had to readjust my schedule a bit.

Kyer: I'm sorry if it seems that I'm making him out to be an idiot. I'll cut back on that, in fact in up coming chapters he'll show his true leadership colors.

Ldypebsaby: It won't exactly be a foreign exchange program, since I actually don't know how those operate exactly. you'll just have to wait and see, as for the crazy stuff at school... maybe.

Chapter 8: The Gathering

Hours after Rogue and Scott arrived with Joe to the Cyber Hub they were entering their new hotel rooms, which they would stay in for the night. The younger members of the warriors, had all gathered, and were still discussing things amongst themselves. Thomas however, thought they needed some privacy, so he got Scott, Rogue, and the Professor rooms at a hotel building not far away. The rooms were nice, not five star, but not roadside motel either. They were on the third floor; below them was the outdoor pool, now closed for the holidays. Rogue stood out on her balcony, just watching the lights of the city, across the bay you could see the statue of liberty in all her glory. It was dark now; it must've been at least eight o'clock. She wondered if Joe and the rest of the Warriors were going to come to Xavier's. It would be interesting; she'd admit that, more new faces, complications perhaps at school. She wondered what different reactions might be between the current X-Men and the Warriors. Like reactions between Jessica and Kurt, she wondered if Kurt had ever seen someone covered in fur like himself. Her thoughts were briefly intruded when she heard the professor's voice. _"Rogue, please come next door, I just received some news."_

Rogue was over into the next room quicker than would have been thought possible. Scott let her in with that same stiff look on his face, firm, but kind. "Rogue." The professor started, taking her attention away from Scott and to the old man sitting in his wheelchair by the room's window. "Thomas just called." He said it with a slight smile.

"And?" Rogue asked as she came in and sat on the edge of one of the beds. Looking at the Professor as if waiting for him to continue, and so he did.

"The Warriors have decided to accept our gracious invitation to attend the Xavier Institution." He said with a slight smile to match the one on Rogue's face. "I'll be speaking with Thomas tomorrow to make the arrangements, you and Scott will be meeting with the teenagers to get some background information on them."

Scott already knew all of this information, so Rogue was the only to nod. "Alright. I guess Ah'll see ya'll in the morning then." She said as she stood back up. "What time do we leave for the Hub?"

"We'll all be leaving here at nine, but you and Scott are meeting the others at a place called the Robaldi musical Center. Do you know how to get there?"

"Yeah, Joe took us there this morning, I think we can find it." Scott said as he took a seat on one of the chairs set at a small table in the room. "If we can't, we'll come back to the Hub, and get directions from Thomas."

Xavier nodded. "Good. All right then, good night Rogue. Sleep well."

Rogue smiled. "You too professor..." She paused. "Good night Scott." And she left, headed back to her own room.

Nine-Thirty the Next Morning

Rogue and Scott had been directed by Hans, the servant like dude that seem to run all over the downstairs of this music center, to a large room at the end of the second floor hall. Room 239, it looked like a musical room, with a piano in the one corner. The only person there already was Joe. He greeted them with a smile as he came in. "Glad you found the place." He said with a laugh. "The others are all coming too, they were all told to be here at nine thirty, Hans will direct them up here when they arrive. Please have a seat." He gestured to folding chairs that were set up all over the room, roughly fifteen or so of them.

"Morning Joe." Rogue said as they came in. "When the others get here, what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't exactly know for sure. The way Thomas and the Professor set it up it's kind of a two way questioning. We ask you questions about yourselves and the school, and you ask us questions about ourselves, powers, backgrounds, what have you."

"Sounds good." Scott said as Joe motioned for them to take a seat.

They sat down and waited, talking and chit chatting about various things. Finally the first arrivals came, first came William and Jonathan Howlett. Then came the girls; Grace, Elise, Danielle, and Megan who gave a slight smile to Scott as she took her seat directly across from him. "Then came Mike who sat off to the side. And then James and Jessica covered so you couldn't see her fur. Then came in someone that Scott and Rogue hadn't met before, Christian Van Hart. He had somewhat curly blonde hair that reached his shoulders. Like most of the other guys in the group, he seemed quite muscular, and well toned. He wore a pair of baggy carpenter jeans and a loose t-shirt. Finally in came Nathan, wearing his rings, and then Rebecca, the female 'chaperone' she was nineteen, just like James.

Finally, once everyone was there, Joe stood up. "Alright." He began. "Thomas wanted us to do this so that we could get to know Scott and Rogue better, and so that they could get to know more about all of us." He cleared his throat. "Alright, now yesterday you told us of the codenames that you have on your training team. Well after you left yesterday we thought up of our own codenames. We'll go around the circle, each stand up, give your name, codename, and power with demonstration if you want." They nodded. "I'll start." He looked to Rogue and Scott. "My name is Joseph McKinley. My codename is Clone. And my power is genetic replication."

Will went next. "My name is William Howlett, Codename Warp. My power is altering the space within three millimeters of my skin to create a vacuum-like effect, allowing me to do things like this." He put his hand on the wall, and the next thing Rogue or Scott knew he was crouched on the ceiling, looking down at them. He smirked and dropped down right in front of his char, and took his seat.

His brother was next. Rogue found it odd that the twins had both dyed their hair blue to match their eyes. "My name is Jonathan Howlett, codename Force. My power is this..." He turned towards his chair and pointed his index finger at it. Suddenly it was knocked back against the wall. "To create invisible fields of energy that expand away from me once I create them."

Next to stand was Gracie. "My name is Grace Rutherford, codename Raven. My mutation is stabilized equilibrium, or in other words, supernatural balance." At that she flipped backwards, landing in a one handed handstand on the back of her chair. From there she landed on her feet behind her chair, and sat back down.

Elise stood up with a sigh. "My name is Elise Kain. I am able to feel other people's emotions, and control them for a short time through eye to eye contact." She said quickly and was about to sit back down when she remembered something; she had forgotten the codename she had created. "And my codename is Spyre." She said and took her seat.

Danielle was the next to stand up. "My name is Danielle Porter, my codename is Pitch, and though I am not a mutant, Thomas did give me something when he installed this." She said lifting her chin to reveal her artificial vocal cords. "I can generate highly directional ultrasonic energy fields capable of causing a whole mess of side effects on anyone that I direct it to, such as Nausea, disorientation, discomfort, and other symptoms. Animals also don't like it, and it tends to drive them away." She said and then took her seat again.

Next stood up Megan. She blushed slightly as she began to speak. "I guess it's my turn. My name is Megan Lamont, my codename is Whisperer, and my powers are something along the lines of hypnotic suggestion." She smiled slightly and sat back down.

Mike stood up from his seat on the other room, and spoke loudly so everyone could hear him. "My name is Michael Young, my codename is Psychic, and my power is Telepathy." He said quickly, and sat back down.

James and Jessica stood up at the same time, but James spoke first. "My name is James King, my codename is King, and my powers are a sort of metallic mimetic ability, like I showed you the other day." He said with a nod to Scott and Rogue.

Jessica spoke next. "My name is Jessica King, codename Animal, after my favorite Muppet character. And my powers are enhanced agility and strength, and these talons, and the tail and fur and all." She said with a smile and sat back down.

Then the teenage boy that neither Scott nor Rogue had met yet stood up. "My name is Christian Van Hart. I chose the codename Dragon. And my powers are... Well here, I'll show you." He took off his shirt, revealing an even more muscularly toned chest and abdomen that Rogue thought he had. "This is gonna hurt...." Suddenly he arched his back, and then fell to his knees with a look of pain on his face and an almost scream escaping his lips. Rogue stood up concerned but Joe stopped her as the others all took a step back from Chris. Suddenly two tendril-like things came from his shoulder blades, growing and forming, suddenly the boy had two huge bat-like wings coming out from his back. "I can grow two wings out of my back, and use them to fly." He said standing up again. "We measured it, I've got a wing span of twenty feet tip to tip." He said with a smile, but remained standing, folding his wings, and wrapping them around him like a cloak. "If no one minds though, they're going to stay out for a while, it'll hurt like hell to pull them back in just as much as it hurt to grow them." The others nodded and everyone took their seats again, including Rogue, but Chris remained standing with his wings wrapped around his shoulders and draping to the ground like a cape.

Nathan stood up next. "My name is Nathaniel Albarran, codename Toxin. My mutation is that my skin generates highly venomous and acidic chemical toxins that vaporize organic tissue upon contact." He held a straight face as he said it, and sat back down quickly.

Rebecca stood up next and gave her speech. "I guess I'm last huh? All right then, my name is Rebecca Davison. My codename is Reflex. And my powers are... well... basically enhanced reaction time, and precognition." She said shrugging. "Like this." She pulled out a knife and tossed it closed to James. She went over to the wall and stood about four feet from it, with her back to James. "Wait a little bit, then throw the knife at me." She said. James did as he was told; he waited eleven seconds, and then chucked the opened knife at her. Suddenly she twirled around, and did a matrix like dodging of it, bending back and catching the handle of the knife as it flew where her chest had been mere seconds before. She closed the knife and put it back in her pocket. "Just like that.' She said as she sat back down.

Joe spoke next. "And that's all thirteen of us." Joe said with a slight smile. "Now we already know your names and abilities, and now you know all of ours, we still have a few questions that we didn't get to get answered yesterday. Yesterday you mentioned something called the Brotherhood. Who are they?"

Scott answered. "It's a group of mutants that have a different view than us. They cause trouble, and do as they please, they'd get away with everything if we didn't stop them when we can."

"So they pick fights with you?" Will asked with a brow raised.

"Yeah, sometimes." Scott answered.

"Interesting." James smirked. "You think that if we join you that they might try to hassle us?"

"I hope so." Will interrupted.

"Maybe, but I don't think they'd mess with you too much, it's nothing to be afraid of, they wouldn't hassle you if your with others, and I doubt they'd hassle some of you even then." Scott said sitting back.

"I see." James said with a nod.

Rogue and Scott spent the next few hours explaining about the Brotherhood, the school, the Institute, and even Magneto. Rogue felt strange kind of talking about all of this, but it was cool at the same time. Here was a group of kids, more or less just like them. She knew her roommate Kitty would fawn over most of these guys, and maybe even Jean would too. She was into that jock-like build in guys wasn't she? I mean after all she was into Duncan.

"So what about the town? Are there any arcades?" Will asked with a smile.

"I think there's one. I've never gone into it though." Scott confessed.

"Any bookstores?" Mike asked looking over to the group.

"There are two." Rogue answered him with a smile.

Mike nodded and went back to his reading. "Is it like a city, or a town, or what? Does it have a mall?" Elise asked as she leaned forward a bit.

"Yeah, it does have a mall, some of the girls from the Institute go there every now and then." Rogue answered.

And then the next few hours were all about the town, and the people and the surrounding attractions. The kids were looking like they liked the idea of it more and more. Finally at about one P.M., Joe spoke up.

"Alright, it's lunch time. Should we order Pizza?" He asked to the group. "Or do we want sandwhiches, or what?"

The group agreed on Pizza. And Joe left to order as the group got informal and began to loosen up a bit. It was all going really well they thought. Finally Joe came back, the pizza would be there soon.

"So are there a lot of girls at the mansion?" Chris asked with a laugh.

"There are a few." Scott answered.

"What about the guys? Are the guys there hot Rogue?" Megan asked with another laugh.

"Ah don't know, maybe a few." She answered. In truth, she thought a few of the guys here were hotter than any at the Mansion, but that didn't really matter to her anyway.

Elise laughed. "All right, come on, let's get back to a serious subject."

"Do we have to?" Will asked from the ceiling above Elise. "I mean some subjects can be fun, they don't have to be serious. Right?"

"Yeah, but we're not here to talk about stuff like that. Besides, I don't think Rogue and Scott like answering whether certain people are hot or not." She said with a smile to the boy on the ceiling above her.

He crawled over a bit and dropped down next to Elise, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Alright then. Here's a serious subject. The professor doesn't want us to reveal the fact that mutants exist to the world. Right?" He asked looking to Scott.

"Right." Scott nodded. "He just doesn't feel that the world is quite ready for us just yet."

"Well, are we allowed to help others using our powers, or do we have to do it without them?" Will asked looking to his brother and then back to Scott.

"You're supposed to help others of course, but refrain from using your powers unless absolutely necessary." Scott answered as best he could. "I mean if something is happening, like an emergency, or a fire or something, of course you're supposed to help them, but try not to use your powers."

"All right." Will said with a nod. "There, that serious enough there for ya Ellie?" He asked giving her a kiss on the cheek and turning back towards a few of the others.

Elise blushed slightly, and was about to say something, but was interrupted by a knock at the door of the room. Hans opened it. "You're lunch is at the front desk." He said to them all. "Eight large pizzas. The delivery man, a Mister Parker, apologizes for his lateness."

A few of the guys laughed. "Come on, John, give me some help carrying those." Joe said as he headed towards the door. Jonathan following him."

Coming Soon... Chapter 9

Author's Note: Hey ya'll, I need some help. I'm stuck for an idea, some sort of writers block. Do any of you have any ideas? I want to bring Magneto into the story again as a villain, but I'm not quite sure how to do it. Please give me your ideas in your reviews. And btw, keep reviewing!


	9. Musicians and Magnetos

Chapter 9: Musicians and Magnetos

A/N: I would like to thank all of you for reading and reviewing. I really do enjoy reading the reviews of my story. The song Lyrics in this fic are written by a group known as Jars of Clay. I hope you like this chapter, and now: the responses to your reviews.

ldypebsaby: Yes, the pizza delivery guy was Peter Parker, A.K.A. Spiderman. In Spiderman 2 Peter had a job as a pizza delivery guy, which of course, he lost.

Mark C: I'm not sure if I'm going to bring Parker in as a Warrior. No wait. Yes I am sure. I'm going to bring him in, but not with the X-Men. Right now I'm working on another fic where a slightly different branch of people in the Warriors discover and recruit Peter Parker. That however will more than likely be in the Ultimate Marvel area not in the X-Men Evolution area.

Proponent of Evo: Thank you for the ideas, and the compliment! I hope you continue to read this great fic, and that you continue to review it and tell me how great it is! LOL.

An elderly man sat on a bench in front of a small playground reading the Daily Bugle. Specifically the article about the mysterious Christmas Angel that began helping people and then disappeared. Written by the esteemed Ben Urich. His mind however was not on the article in front of him, but on the strange events that had happened to him the day before. A group of four young men had lured him into an alley in an attempt to rob him, but before he could react and defend himself, another young man stepped in, and beat the others, scaring them off. The young man received nothing but a cut across his chest for his troubles, and yet he had seemed happy about it, as if he was content. That was what struck this elderly man as odd. The entire experience was strange, but he was about to have an even stranger one.

Quite suddenly, above the noise of the people and the traffic that made up the sounds of New York City, rose the faint but clear sound of music. Piano music of the heavenly variety seemed to be attempting to escape from paradise to come down and bless those beings of the mortal world below. At first it did indeed sound as if the soft music was coming from the sky above. It was enchanting, the old man rose from his seat on the bench to his feet. Discovering that the music was indeed not coming from the sky, but from the top of the building across the street the old man started towards it. Coming to the door in almost a trance he looked up to the sign above the door before entering, it read 'Robaldi Music Center.'

He was opening the door when a young man in a pizza deliver outfit sped out the door, hitting the old man with the door as he came out. The young man tried to apologize but the old man ignored him, walking in and to the stair well at the back of the first floor lobby area. Before he knew it he was at the top, but the door had an electronic key card lock on it. The man held out his hand towards it so his palm was facing the lock, and suddenly the lock was ripped off the door and the wall, and the door opened slowly. The music, though still soft, became louder and more enchanting when he opened the door and continued to do so as he got nearer to it.

He entered the same single fireplace room that Rogue and Scott had gone into the day before. And then the old man saw the source of the music, his gaze locking on the one piano and the one playing it in the small side room with opened glass patio doors that must've led to the roof. A beautiful song that the old man had never heard before came from the keys, yet it was so familiar that he could almost guess the next notes that would be coming from it. It was so lovely and entrancing that without knowing it he continued to get closer to it, until the floor beneath him creaked.

The music abruptly ended as the figure in front of the piano whirled around, grabbed a nearby cane, and had the old man pinned to the wall with it by the throat before he could even register what had happened. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" The piano player shouted, now more like a beast then a man. The old man could see now that the right side of the piano player was horribly scarred, including his face, and it took all he had in him not to turn his eyes away in fright.

The cane in the piano player's hand and against the old mans throat suddenly released itself from his grip and floated to where it stood itself against the wall. The old man straightened his coat by the collar and turned to fully face the piano player. "My name is Eric. Eric Lehnsherr, but you may call me, Magneto."

Mean while...

Rogue was finishing her first slice of pizza and talking to a few of the girls about different things, like the school at Bayville, and things of that nature. Scott however had already finished his pizza and was looking around the room at the different people when he spotted Mike sitting by himself in the corner of the room by a window reading a book.

He started walking over and as he got closer he managed to read the title of the book, 'The Scarlet Letter' it seemed odd to him that a young fourteen or thirteen or however old Mike was, would be reading a book like that. Before Scott could speak Mike did, not looking up from his book.

"Hi Scott." Mike said, acknowledging Scott's presence. "Pull up a seat if you want."

Scott did so, and sat down in it, facing Mike. "Well I just figured we could talk a little since we haven't really been able to talk to you since that Christmas Eve party. And even then it was a really, really brief conversation."

"Yeah well... you've pretty much been surrounded by people since ya got here. And I don't do well in crowds." He said looking up from his book and closing it, having a bookmark in it so he wouldn't loose his page.

"Yeah, we were told your power, or at least a general version of it, and that you didn't like crowds." Scott said with a nod.

"Yeah..." He paused. "And yes, I can hear your thoughts right now."

Scott smiled somewhat of a smirk on his face. "Sorry. I just wanted to see if it was automatic like I heard."

"Yeah, you heard right. I'm kind of like a thought receptor. I can't project my thoughts into others, and I can only hear what they are thinking at that exact moment, and I can't shut it off." Mike said as he sat up straight.

"If you can only hear what they are thinking at that exact moment, how did you find out that Rogue and I were mutants, did Rogue think that to herself?" He asked curiously.

"Well it's kind of complicated but I can tell the difference between the thoughts of a mutant, and the thoughts of a human. Sort of like an accent. I guess the brainwaves are different or something. It's really hard to explain, but I just know if the thought I'm hearing is coming from a mutant or a human."

"And the knock out thing?" Scott asked with a brow slightly raised from behind his ruby shades.

"Happens when I get overloaded with other people's thoughts for too long a time, or during times of extreme emotional upset." Mike answered with a nod. "When it happens it knocks everyone in a fifteen foot radius unconscious, and they wake up with a five minute or so memory lapse, and a headache."

"I didn't know about the memory lapse part of it." Scott said as he sat back against his chair. "I take it you're kind of a loner in the team then?" He asked it more like he was asking for affirmation than an answer.

"Yeah. Nathan and I are both kind of the withdrawn ones in the group. Both out of habit and necessity." He answered with a nod.

"I see." Scott nodded.

"Hey Scott!" Scott's train of thought was suddenly interrupted by Danielle's voice yelling to him. "Get over here, Rogue says that you'd know the answer to this one!"

"Coming." Scott said as he got up and turned back towards Mike.

"Go ahead." Mike said with a nod. "We can talk later if you want to."

Scott nodded and headed over towards Rogue and the other girls as Mike re-opened his book. To be honest that's all he'd really like to do all day long if he was allowed to. Just read. Suddenly, his reading was interrupted from Elise shouting from the doorway. "He everybody! Will and the others are gonna play for us! Grab the food and follow me!" She said as she waved them towards her, and walked into the room across the hall.

Everyone followed her, even Mike, into the other room. The room was identical to the other one except this one had a platform like stage at the one end of it, which band gear on it. Amps, guitars, drums, and a keyboard were all up there along with some microphones. Will went up onto the stage as James brought in the pizza boxes, putting them on a table by the door. "Hey everybody. This is what we're gonna do." He said as he put the strap of an electric guitar of his shoulder. "For those of you who don't know. **Cough** Scott **Cough** Rogue **Cough** there are those few of us here in the Warriors, that have musical talent. None of which are in this band." He gave a slight laugh, as did several others. "Anyway, for lack of imagination we called ourselves the warriors. We have Chris here on the drums." Chris came up to the stage, his wings now gone and his shirt was back on him as he took his seat. "Danielle on the electric Guitar." Danielle came up and took the second guitar. "Nathan on the base." Nathan was already on the stage and holding the base guitar. "And Myself." He said with a slight bow. "Now. This song here is written by Nathan over there, it's called... 'Something Beautiful'." He said with a slight nod. Suddenly the guitars and drums started off in a low, soft and soothing tune as Will began to sing the words. With Danielle and Nathan singing every now and then as backup.

If you put your arms around me

Could it change the way I feel.

I guess I let myself believe

That the outside might just bleed it's way in.

Maybe stir the sleeping past

Lying under glass.

Waiting for the kiss

To break this awful spell.

Pull me out

Of this lonely hell.

Close my eyes and hold my heart.

Cover me and make me something

Change this something normal

Into something beautiful.

What I get from my reflection

Isn't what I thought I'd see.

Give me reason to believe

You'd never leave me incomplete.

Will you untie this loss of mine,

It so easily defines me

Do you see it on my face.

That all I can think about is how long

I've been waiting to feel you move me.

Close my eyes and hold my heart.

Cover me and make me something.

Change this something normal

Into something beautiful.

The song began and ended slow, but it was a nice song all the same, a nice one to start out with. Rogue really began to think about that Nathan person. What kind of person he really was, maybe they had some things in common.

"Next we have a song by me. It's just a fun up beat something that I doodled out a while ago. Here goes, it's called, 'Revolution'." He said with a slight smile. This song started upbeat and fast, and it stayed that way too.

Peace takes a taxi to the underground.

I want to love the world but I don't know how.

Blame it on the D.J. Playing all the fast songs,

Ain't spinning anything that I can sing along.

So if you know the words

Then try to sing along.

When you get the beat

Grab a hammer bang a gong.

Cause you don't have to fight

Or make yourself belong

To be a revolution. Yeah.

If you wanna learn to play the 'rock guitar'

Throw down your guns, your gonna be a star.

You gotta begin with who you know you are

To be a revolution.

The time is right to cross that line

And let love find a way...

So if you know the words

Then try to sing along.

When you get the beat

Grab a hammer bang a gong.

Cause you don't have to fight

Or make yourself belong,

To be a revolution. Yeah.

To be a revolution.

The song ended and Will took a slight bow, to the applause of the crowd, but that applause was suddenly interrupted by Hans rushing into the room. "Quickly! All of you! There is another mutant upstairs fighting with the master, go! Help him!" He called as he rushed in. Hans himself was not a mutant, or at least they didn't think he was. He had never actually said or demonstrated that he was a mutant. But that was immaterial, he barely had time to finish before even those that had been on the stage were rushing towards and out the door, headed upstairs.

Coming Soon.... Chapter 10: A Warrior's Battle


	10. The Battle

**Author's Notes: Thanks for the reviews. You might've guess that Magneto is the one attacking. Well you're wrong. And if you thought that you would get to see The Warrior's reactions to Scott and Rogue kicking Magneto's metal butt, you were wrong about that too. SO ha! Why do you think I called them the warriors?**

**Chapter 10: The Battle**

Just as Magneto was finished introducing himself, there was a small applause from one person at the entrance of the room. "Very nice to meet you 'Magneto'." He said gesturing the quotation marks with his hands. "My name is Dustin, and I have something to discuss with Mr. Baldy here if you don't mind." He said as he came into the room. "If you can just give us a minute..."

"What is this?" Mr. Robaldi asked looking over to the newcomer. "Get out of here!"

Eric too looked over to the newcomer with something of a smirk on his face; obviously this fool hadn't seen him use his powers just moments earlier. "Get out of here now, we adults have something important to discuss."

Dustin smiled ever so slightly, there was something disturbing about his smile, and it bothered Eric. "More important than his life?" He asked stepping into the room, allowing someone else to enter, a smaller guy, with blue hair and a hair cut like Wolverine's, and sharp rough nails like Sabretooth's at the throat of Hans, whom he was holding by the neck as he drug him into the room.

"Hans..." Mr. Robaldi said standing up as straight as he could, which actually made him look quite intimidating with his scars and build. "Let him go!"

"Now, now, calm down. I'm looking for somebody. You should know him, goes by the name King, or at least he used to. Big fella, can't miss him, six and a half feet tall? Muscles the size of most small children? Ringing any bells?"

"No." Robaldi answered dryly.

"Let me ask again." Dustin said nodding to the guy holding Hans who responded by pressing his nails harder against Hans' throat, which made Hans grasp at the hand at his throat. "Ring any bells?" Dustin asked again.

"I'll tell you what." Eric said. "You let him go, and we kill you."

Dustin smiled again that same eerie smile. "Toughness, how foolish." He said as he looked to Robaldi again.

"All right. If you let him go, I'll send him to go get this... King." Robaldi answered. Dustin nodded and the guy holding Hans let him go. "Go." Robaldi said to Hans. "And hurry."

Quickly Hans rushed out of the room and down the stairs, disappearing from the sight of the others. In the meanwhile Dustin made himself comfortable, waiting for Hans to return with King. "Jack, get the others in here. Quick." The guy that had been holding Hans earlier went into the hall, and returned with five other guys, four of which Eric recognized from the alley the other day.

Eric was getting impatient, this was ridiculous, why not just kill these punks, these homo sapiens weren't worth his time, he had things to discuss with this, Mr. Robaldi, but Robaldi might consider him a monster, and turn him down if he were just to out right kill everybody else in the room.

**MEAN WHILE**

The entire room, except for Mike and Nathan were at the door just as James stepped in front of it. "Hold it!" He shouted. "Too many of us up there won't do anybody any good." He said loudly. "Will. John. Rebecca. Jessica. Gracie. Scott. And Megan. You follow me. Scott." He said looking over to Scott. "You can come, if you want, but if you don't want to, just stay put." Scott didn't say any thing; he just followed the rest of them.

Will was the first to make it up the staircase, the rest of the group almost leaving Scott behind in the dust. He was short of breath by the time he got to the top of the stairs, but the others seemed fine, in fact, they were. He realized that it was because they were all in great shape. It was why all the guys were muscular and well toned, well except for Mike and Nathan, and why all the girls were well toned as well.

They all came into the room at near the same time, all ready to fight, but everyone seemed to be waiting for them, which confused everyone, until James caught site of Dustin.

"King!" He called as he stood up from the armchair in the corner. "Here I thought you were dead." Dustin laughed.

"You should have kept thinking that." James said looking around the room; he recognized four of the seven other guys, as the guys that had been trying to mug the old guy in the alley the other day. Then something odd struck his sight; there was the old guy that had been mugged the other day, the one that he had helped for nothing but rudeness.

Scott had his hand on his glasses when he saw magneto. "What's going on here?" Scott asked, but James put his hand out, blocking Scott and telling him to be quiet.

"What is going on here, why did you track me down?" James asked looking to Dustin for an answer.

"Well it's like this... It seems that business in Chicago isn't going that well. So a few friends of mine move up here with me to New York. We start a new business up here; great job really, and on the side we pick up cash were we can. Not how I really like to do business, but it's life." He cleared his throat. "Now it seems here, that my friends here." He gestured to the seven others, mainly the four that both James and Magneto had recognized. "Were trying to pick up some side cash, when they were trashed by this huge monster of a guy, oddly enough, with a glove on his right hand, with five rings, along with the same exact tattoo that you have on your back." Dustin said. "Now the way I see it, you stopped my boys from completing their business transaction, which stops them from paying me, which stops me from paying others, you know how it works."

"So you want me to pay you now, that the point?" James asked impatiently.

"You either pay up one thousand bucks, or you can work it off for me, or I can make it painful for you until you do."

James laughed, he laughed so hard that Scott was bewildered to no end. He looked around the room only to find that Magneto had slipped out while no one was looking. Mr. Robaldi." James said after a deep breath. "I think you need to leave the room, I don't want to get any blood on your nice suit." James said before walking right up to Dustin, who reached his stomach, and looked down at him. "Dust. You don't try to scare an enforcer. You really think, that you. Okay, you and seven guys, could come here, and make me pay you?"

"You ain't gotta choice." Dustin said with that same disturbing smile.

James smirked. "So you're going to force me eh? You're going to try and fight us all, is that it?" James said looking back, let's see... nine against... one, two, three, four, oh... nine against nine." James said turning back to Dustin. "Look's like you're pretty evenly numbered." James said with a smile.

"Oh yeah?" Dustin said reaching into his pocket. "This ought to put the odds in my favor." He said pulling out a handgun.

James laughed all the more he turned his back to Dustin and looked to Will and the others. "You guy's ready?" He asked looking to the group.

Will nodded. "Ready."

"Then go!" James shouted as he turned around, now in his adanantium form and punched Dustin across the jaw, which sent him flying into the other room.

Jessica and Will were immediately on the ceiling, Megan had disappeared, probably staying back knowing she wasn't useful in this kind of combat, and Scott was left standing next to John, Rebecca, and Gracie. Almost immediately the other members pulled guns, except for the ape like one that sort of reminded Scott of toad almost, except that he was kind of like Sabretooth, that guy was just odd. That guy however was indeed a mutant, the next thing anyone knew he was on the ceiling to, using his nails to stick into the ceiling.

They fired at Scott and those near him; Scot aimed with his optic blast but was pushed down by John, who had just saved him from a bullet. One of the guys had already fallen, John had sent up a force field, bouncing the bullets back towards that shooter, who had taken three shots to the right leg. From the ground Scott blasted the gun in one of the gang member's hands just as Rebecca flipped up to them and kicked him across the face, knocking him around.

Will grabbed the another member and forced him to drop his gun as he picked him up from the ceiling and swung him towards the other side of the room, crashing him into the wall. Gracie had done nearly the same as Rebecca, dodging and somersaulting and kicking away the gun of another member. Jessica was in the middle of a hand-to-hand battle with the other monkey-like dude, and James had taken care of the rest, slamming whoever had been aiming a gun.

James picked up Dustin, still in his adanantium form. "Now get out, and if you come back after me again, I'll kill you. Got it?" He asked smacking him across the face, hard, which made Scott wince.

Dustin didn't answer, but nodded ever so slightly, and crawled out of the room. Suddenly Jessica fell from the ceiling on one side of the room and Jack dropped to the floor gracefully on the other. Jessica picked herself up, and ran on all fours towards him. He did the same, and five feet from each other they pounced, meeting each other in mid-air and clashing and falling to the ground. As they hit Jessica was on the bottom, she took her legs and kicked him up, and as he fell she swiped him with her talons for the up-tenth time. Jack left by use of the window as quickly as he could, and the other's helped their wounded teammate out of the room.

Soon just the warriors were left in the messy and broken up room. James reverted back to normal and stood up, asking if everyone was okay. Everyone was, more or less, just a little rattled, and at least a few were. "Who was that?" Scott asked standing up.

"That was my best friend." James answered gruffly.

"What?" Rebecca asked in disbelief.

"At least he used to be." James explained. "It was a long time ago, it doesn't matter." He said shaking his head. "You okay sis?" He asked looking to Jessica.

"Yeah, just a little cut on the arm, I'll fix it later." She said as she helped Scott get up.

John shook his head. "That was just plain ridiculous. What was that all about?"

Scott just sat back as the different warriors asked James their questions and he answered them, but the most important question to Scott was one that James couldn't answer. Why had Magneto been there?

**MEAN WHILE**

Rogue watched the others leave, and looked around as she was left in the room with Elise, Danielle, Mike, Nathan, Joe, and Chris. "Why'd they leave all of us behind?" She asked complainingly.

"Because in all truthfulness." Mike began. "None of us are of any use in close combat. I mean Joe's useful for strategic stuff, as is Elise and Danielle. Chris is good and useful if he's got room to spread those wings of his, and Nathan and I... Well... yeah." He finished sitting back down.

Nathan spoke for like, the first time in the entire meeting. "I don't mind actually. I'd rather be left behind, no offence to anyone, but I don't want to be in combat and all that, there's no real point to it."

Elise shrugged. "I don't think it really matters, they can all take care of it. Though I'm curious as to why you didn't ask to go Joe." She said looking over to him.

Joe shrugged as he took a seat next to Rogue. "I don't know, I just didn't want to have to use my powers. I mean, in all honesty, that's all I'm useful for. My powers, and playing football." He said with a slight smile.

Danielle laughed. "Yeah... well we love you anyway."

"Yeah, yeah." Joe said as he sat back, leaning with the two hind chair legs being the only ones touching the floor. "We all know you guys only keep me around because no one else would play Santa's errand boy every year." He said with a laugh.

Rogue chimed in. "You do that every year?" She asked curiously.

"Well at least for the last two in a row. That's two out of the three years that I've been in the Warriors." He explained. "It's just sort of an on going joke now. Thomas always seems to pick the same guy until someone new comes along, and then the newest one gets the job, kind of. There are members newer than me, but I still get the job, but I like it, so I'm fine with keeping it." He said with a smile as he sat forward again.

"Yeah, personally I think that Joe would dress up in that Santa outfit if Thomas would let him." Elise said with a giggle.

"Hey, don't blame me if I'm the only one here with Christmas spirit." He said sitting back again. "It's not my fault I like bringing joy to other people's faces." He said with another slight smile.

"I wonder if everyone's okay up there." Mike broke in. "It's been quiet for a while."

"They can take care of themselves." Nathan reassured him. "If there was trouble there'd be more noise than that."

And as if on cue a loud bang sounded throughout the air from upstairs. It was a gunshot, followed by several others, and several yells. Rogue shot out of her chair only to have Joe's hand stop her by touching her shoulder. "Don't worry. Guns ain't no use against James and the others, that's a good sign, it means they're winning."

Just as soon as he finished Megan came to the door helping Mr. Robaldi.

"Meg? What happened?" Nathan asked with a brow slightly raised. Rogue found it odd that nearly no emotion could be sensed from his voice or how he spoke.

"Well the mutant attacking Mr. Robaldi had a few friends, James and the rest are up their taking care of them, I helped Mr. Robaldi get out of there, and came here, since well... I'm no good at combat." She said as she helped Mr. Robaldi to a chair.

He sat down slowly and surely and Megan closed the room's door. "It seems an old friend of James' wished to pay him a visit." Mr. Robaldi said. Rogue couldn't put her finger on it, but he seemed different from the day before, only slightly, maybe because this time he wasn't shouting or scaring anyone to get out.

Rogue looked to Joe with a worried look. "Don't worry, James and the others will take care of them."

"It's not that... Ah'm more worried about Scott." She said with her accent coming out a little thicker than normal.

**MEANWHILE**

"We'd better get back downstairs." James said finally once everyone had seemed to have his or her questions answered. "The others will be getting worried. Is everyone sure that everyone is okay?" He asked as he headed towards the door.

"Hey, John." Scott said as they were exiting the large room. "Thanks. If you hadn't knocked me down, I would have been hit." He said with a slight nod to John.

"It was nothing. If I were you, I'd be more worried about all the questions that are going to be asked once we get downstairs." John said with a slight wink.

Will was actually crawling above them, attached the stairwell above them as they walked down another flight of steps. "Well I know Elise will be happy to see me alive and well." He said with a smile.

"Oh? And how do you know that? Maybe she was hoping that you'd get shot?" Jessica asked looking up. John and Will laughed.

"Nah." Will said. "I'll bet ya one will make ya twenty that she'll give me a hug when we enter that room."

"Maybe." John said with a smile.

**Okay this chapter seriously sucked, and for that I apologize. I promise the next one will be better. In fact the next one will be the last one, and then I'll work on the sequel when the Warriors are actually at the Xavier Institute. I hope that if you read this chapter, you review, and I hope you read the upcoming Sequel story, 'Thirteen Warriors'.**


	11. Loose Ends

**Okay this is the last and final chapter of this story. I'll get the sequel up as soon as I can. I want to thank Mark C for putting me on your favorites list, and ldypebsaby for putting me on your watch list. Does anyone think I should make a C2 community for the Warriors? I have a few other stories that I'll be writing with them, a Spiderman one, a Smallville one, a Teen Titans one, even a Static Shock one, not to mention the sequel to this one. lol.** **Anyone think that a C2 community would be a good idea? Would anyone even join it?**

Chapter 11: Loose Ends 

By the time that James and the others had gotten to the room Megan had for the most part filled everyone in on what had happened. Scott however was still curious to why Megan had left, but that would be a question for another time he realized as Thomas appeared in the doorway behind them all. "Is Robaldi okay?" He asked suddenly as he appeared making a few people, including Rogue and Scott jump.

"Wear a bell or something man! Robaldi's fine, he's right here." Will said pointing to the horribly disfigured and scarred man sitting slightly away from the other teenagers. Megan was sitting next to him making sure he was okay.

"What happened?" Thomas asked as the others all took their own seats.

"Dustin paid me a visit." James said with a slight nod.

Thomas lowered his shades ever so slightly looking at James. "How'd he find you?" He asked with authority.

"You remember that old man that I saved from getting mugged yesterday? And I got that knife cut for it?" James asked.

Thomas raised his brow ever so slightly as he readjusted his shades. "Yeah?"

"Well it seems they work for him now, he's moved up here to the city." James answered as he stood up.

"Well then it's a good thing that you're getting out of here." Thomas said with a sound of pity in his voice. "How long do you think before he calls that Johnson fellow?"

"Knowing him, he's on the phone right now." James said with a slight frown.

This entire conversation left everyone else in the room very confused and bewildered. "Do you two want to go somewhere privately and talk, or is this conversation over now?" Nathan asked, ending the second of silence that was hanging in the room.

"We're done. Actually I want all of you to go home, and pack up your things as soon as possible." Thomas said looking around the room. "The professor wants Rogue and Scott to go back with him today to the Institute, and James if you don't mind, I'm going to send you and Jessica with him today too. The rest of you don't leave for another few days until everything is settled."

Jessica stood up. "Fine be me." She said stretching a bit. "I just need to grab something from my room and we can be ready to go." She said with a yawn.

James just shrugged. "We'd better I guess."

"Good." Thomas said as he turned and looked towards Rouge and Scott. "The professor is waiting for us at the Hub, he's already cleaned out the hotel rooms, all your stuff is ready to go." He turned and looked at James. "I'll send your stuff to you with the others."

"Okay." James said nodding as he and Jessica, and Rogue and Scott all stood up. Jessica put on her hoody and boots again, getting all covered so that no one could see her fur. Rogue wondered if Thomas was going to teleport them to the Hub, but he didn't offer, so she guessed not.

"Bye guys. We'll see you in a few days." Scott said as they neared the door.

"Bye ya'll." Rogue said as she gave a slight wave to Joe and the others and left with Scott, Jessica, and James.

The coldness of the air was like walking into a brick wall for Rogue, she had forgotten that the season was Christmas. Her breath hung in the air for her as she walked out the front door of the Robaldi Music Center.

"We're taking the alleys and back streets, if you don't mind." James said, as he was the last one out the door. "It's just on the other side of the block there, we cut across this alley and we're there." James said as he started walking.

Rogue looked to Scott who shrugged and followed James, Rogue and Jessica did the same. "Is he always commanding like that?" Rogue asked as the boys went ahead and the girls dropped behind a bit.

"Sometimes. Right now he's scared." Jessica answered.

"Scared of what?" Rogue asked surprised, James didn't seem the type that would be afraid of anything or anyone.

"Scared that someone might see me, or that I'll be discovered, or that something might happen to me. It's a rough city." Jessica explained.

"Wow. He's a really protective fella ain't he?" Rogue asked looking over to Jessica.

"Well yeah. I mean he sort of has to be. He's always been that way. It's kind of odd, he and I are close friends more than siblings, we don't squabble or fight, he's just like my best friend."

"That seems... odd."

"Well I suppose it does, but it doesn't really." Jessica explained. "You see all I had growing up was him, and all he had was me, we're the only family either of us have left, and well, with my mutation being so obvious, he's a little protective."

"Oh." Rogue said with a little sympathy in her voice.

Jessica fell silent for the rest of the trip, usually she was bright and energetic and happy, but the subject of the conversation had sobered her for the moment.

James breathed deep as they rounded the corner of the alley, the Hub now in sight just across the street with a nice almost antique car waiting out front of it. Thomas had by all bets beaten them there, but when they got there the two people to greet them in the front room were AI-9 who let them in, and the Professor.

"I'll be right back." Jessica said running off towards the stairs. She returned a few moments later with two things in her hands, a pen, and a fancy looking brown book with a small clasp on the one side of it, her diary.

The professor smiled kindly and warmly, as was his habit when she returned. "Well then, are we all ready to go?" He asked looking to Rogue and Scott.

"Yeah." Rogue answered with a shrug.

"Uh... Sir." James began. "Mr. Walkner was wondering if it would be okay..." The professor who merely held up a hand cut him off.

"It's okay, Thomas is upstairs, and he's told me everything. You and Jessica are welcome to come along today with Scott and Rogue and I." He said with a nod. "However if it is okay with you James, I would like to talk with you privately once we reach the institute."

James nodded. "I was going to suggest that anyway." He said with a slight smile.

"Right shall we go then?" The Professor asked as his wheelchair moved towards the door.

"Wait!" AI-9 called as he headed toward them. He looked like a middle-aged man in a now, a butler almost, just not quite old enough. "He wanted to give you these." He said holding out a small tray with four ring boxes on it, one with a special label marked 'James'. "He wants you to be the first to test an updated version of the pins." AI-9 explained what he had been told to explain. "These are rings."

James picked up the box with his ring, he opened it, it looked like a high school ring, but his wasn't made out of real gold or any metal at all actually, on the top it held a large red stone. He slipped it onto his bare left hand index finger and admired it for a bit. "How do they work?"

"You push the stone down to initiate the tracer sequence, and when there is an alarm, the stone glows." AI-9 answered. "Yours there only have the first option, the tracer sequence, since the second option will be used more for the Warriors that can actually respond to its call. At Xavier's you will be unable to."

Rogue, Scott, and Jessica put theirs on, Jessica's fur almost hid her ring from sight, and it would have been impossible to spot if it wasn't for the red stone. However, unlike James' ring, theirs were metal, mostly gold, but more than likely not pure gold. Instead of the name of the high school or whatever would have been around the stone, their names were inscribed with a special following sentence that was unique to each one.

James' ring said "James King: Warrior" around the stone.

Whereas Scott's said "Scott Summers: X-Man"

Rogue's read "Rogue: X-Woman"

And Jessica's read "Jessica King: Warrior Xavier Division"

"Cool." James said as he read his inscription. "Thanks Alf."

"You're welcome sir." AI-9 said with a slight nod and again left to go work in the smaller back room.

"These are pretty neat." Jessica said. "Way better than the pins." Though she took her pin off, she kept it in her pocket, as James did the same.

Rogue and Scott however set their pins on the nearby end table and nodded to the professor that they were ready to go.

"Very well." He said as they headed towards the door. Xavier sat in the passenger's seat of the antique car, and Scott and Rogue sat on the side seats in the back, the seats were arranged oddly to James, a bench on the left behind the driver's seat, facing the inside, and a bench on the right behind the passenger's seat facing the inside, and a bench in the back facing normally up front. James and Jessica took the rear bench, and Jessica pulled down her hood as the car started up, thankful for the tinted windows.

**MEANWHILE**

Thomas came out of what appeared to be his room, and locked the door behind him. He headed down the hall, but stopped when he remembered something. Quickly he ran back into the room and came out a few seconds later, with a cell phone in his hand. He flipped it open and dialed a few numbers as he walked down the stairs, his matrix like coat and outfit flowing nicely behind him as he walked. "Quinn? I need you and Katashi to come over for a brief meeting." He paused while she spoke. "Yes at the Hub." He paused again. "Well when do you think..." He was cut off and he rolled his eyes behind his dark shades. "Well... Okay, tomorrow at five thirty. Good."

**MEANWHILE**

Eric Lensherr stood atop a rooftop across the street from the Robaldi Music Center. Something bothered him; Xavier had been here for some reason. If Scott was there than there was no reason to think that Xavier hadn't been, now it was just a matter of finding out why. What connection Xavier already had with this Robaldi guy. But he had other things to attend to at the current moment. Silently he slipped out of sight and into the shadows, unnoticed by all, or so he thought.

**MEANWHILE**

Will and John didn't go straight home, they were walking down the street and talking about something, probably the fight that had just occurred, when something or someone swung overhead of them. "Hey, look, it's that Spiderman guy that the Bugle is always harping about." Will said as just as quickly the guy in the red and blue suit disappeared from their line of sight.

**MEANWHILE**

Rebecca drove down the streets of New York City, she always drove her Harley Davidson, never a car. She wore a helmet though, but that didn't stop most of her hair from flapping in the wind, bothering her passenger. Quickly the bike stopped and she turned it, parking it in front of an apartment building. "Here's your stop." She said to Elise who she had agreed to drive home. "Hurry up and pack now."

**MEANWHILE**

Michael and Nathan said their brief goodbye to each other after leaving the store. Nathan headed one way, but Mike headed across the street. He hated walking out in public in this city, his telepathy was automatic, and with a range of fifteen feet his mind could get over crowded fast. Something was odd though; he had this feeling that he was being watched. He looked up in time to see a piece of purple fabric on the rooftop above him just before it disappeared from sight.

**MEANWHILE**

Chris walked with his head down through the park; he was going to say his goodbyes to Mike, the tree-like mutant, along with Joe. Joe walked off the path, but Chris at first didn't notice, in his hurry to catch up he bumped into a man in a trench coat, knocking the man to the ground. "Sorry about that." Chris said offering the man his hand to help him up.

"My fault." The man apologized as he took Chris' hand and stood up, quickly walking past both Chris and Joe.

"Come on." Joe said as he headed off the path again.

"Hey wait... What the?" Chris asked as he bent down and picked up a single white feather from where the man had fallen just moments before.

**MEANWHILE**

Mr. Robaldi again began playing his piano, Hans was in the room with the fireplace that was adjacent to the piano room, dusting. No signs of what had just taken place there were there. Everything was set back like nothing had ever happened. Mr. Robaldi's cane was the only thing left the way it was, which was still resting up against the wall where Magneto had previously put it.

**And that's the end. I know this chapter was a little bit shorter than the rest, but I hope you liked it. I did my best. I think. Well maybe. lol. Anyone have any crossovers where they would like to see the Warriors? Like I said earlier I have a few in the works already. Well, I can't wait to read your reviews, so please review; all of your reviews will help to influence the sequel.** **Until next time... No wait, that saying is too overused.**


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